Avril Harper, webmaster of http://www.public-domain.biz has produced a free guide to the public domain which you can download with other freely distributable reports and ebooks at www.toppco.com
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AVRIL HARPER
The Public Domain: Ten Things You May Not Know About It
There's a little known world of free-to-claim products with unlimited profit
potential, an Aladdin’s Cave of ready-made products for you to locate in
minutes, re-package in hours, and sell as your own.
It’s called ‘The Public Domain’ and it means you can legally copy and sell
other people’s books, maps, films, and more, with no ongoing fees or
royalties of any kind to pay … EVER!
Here are ten more things you may not know about the public domain ….
The public domain describes books and other creative works, such as
photographs and maps, whose copyrights have expired, perhaps never
existed at all, and no one has a better claim on those products than you.
There are millions of public domain works that anyone can copy and sell,
add their own name as author, and even copyright and stop others from
selling similar items.
Changes made to a public domain product, sufficient to make it a
copyrightable product, describes it as a ‘Derivative’ work. Let's say you
buy an old book about witchcraft, published in the United States before
1923, so it is definitely in the public domain. If you publish it 'as is" it's
still in the public domain, although arguably a few minor changes to
font or pagination, length of paragraphs will render it copyright protected.
But tiny changes are insufficient to guarantee your new book is copyright
protected. But change the title, add a few paragraphs of your own, include
pictures of places witches were thought to exist, update spellings, remove
dated terminology, and the book is now copyright protected and termed a
'derivative" work.
A foreign translation of a public domain work is a derivative work and
carries sufficient creativity to allow it full protection of copyright law.
Public domain is not to be confused with reproduction or manufacturing
rights. Reproduction and manufacturing rights, where, for example,
someone gives you a master copy of their book or product with rights
to reproduce that item does not mean their copyright is defunct or
never existed. Reproduction and manufacturing rights are a concession,
usually passed by the product owner, allowing others to reproduce his
work, but rarely does copyright also pass to the recipient. Public
domain rights last indefinitely; reproduction rights can be time limited
or otherwise withdrawn or restricted.
Public domain items can typically be amended by anyone, changed,
reshaped at will, and copyright belongs to no one. Not so reproduction
and marketing rights where the original creator invariably retains
copyright and rarely allows others to alter his work.
Just because you own the original work, such as a painting or original
final draft of a book or piece of music, does not necessarily mean you
also own copyright in the item. Nor does it always mean you can make
and sell copies of your original product. Recently, on television, an
artist explained that he had sold an original painting from which he
earned large sums from limited edition signed prints. Asked why he
sold the painting and, by implication the reprint rights, he insisted
he had only sold the painting, not his intellectual copyright in the item.
Someone else has the painting, he has the copyright and subsequent
reprint copy marketing rights. His claims were verified by the
programme’s legal team.
Public domain is not the same thing as out of print. Out of print simply
means the publisher has ceased creating new copies of a book or
other item though the item may still be fully protected by copyright law.
Some sites hosting public domain products allow their materials to be
downloaded and read, but ban subsequent printing or copying. Play safe,
don’t assume no one will know if you copy their content. Many public
domain works are edited or revised prior to upload and can easily be
identified in later editions. Some sites insist you pay a royalty on money
you make on items they have sourced from the public domain.
Read the rules very carefully and do nothing until you are certain of
your legal standing. The best way to stay safe is to download from
sites without copying restrictions or obtain and copy a physical
version of a product you’re sure is a first edition and in the public
domain. But see the next tip to avoid a very common mistake.
Under certain conditions creative works on which copyright was not
renewed at an appropriate time or which did not include a copyright
notice are deemed to be in the public domain. So say you buy a
book at auction, it has no copyright notice, does that put it in the public
domain? Probably. But be careful; it could be a page containing the
copyright notice has been removed from the book, and it is still
covered by copyright law. Books with reliable consecutive page
numbering with no break in the sequence (such as 1, 2, 3) can usually
be trusted, unlike another with pages numbered i, ii, iv. What became
of page iii, did it ever exist, has it been removed, was it a copyright
page, or did it contain something else, perhaps it was blank!
Cut the risk and choose from items known to be definitely in the
public domain:
- Currently all items published in the USA before 1923 are in the
public domain, meaning they can be copied.
- Work first published in the USA between 1923 and 1963 where
their copyright was not renewed in their 28th year are in
the public domain.
- Work first published in the USA after January 1, 1978 retains
copyright for the life of the author and seventy years
thereafter, bearing close similarity to UK laws(see below).
- Work first published in the USA between 1978 and March 1, 1989,
without copyright notice AND without registration, is in the
public domain.
- In the UK copyright typically extends to 70 years from the end
of the calendar year in which the creator died (not the same
as 70 years since the creator’s death), with some other
restrictions as explained concisely in 'Writers’ and Artists’
Yearbook" available from all main reference libraries.
(The book also covers other world copyright issues.)
- Works published before copyright laws existed are in the
public domain.
- Works dedicated so by the creator belong to the public domain.
A writer or other creator can dedicate his work to the public
domain, thereby relinquishing ownership and allowing
anyone to use the work, even change it, or sell copies.
Copyright 3006, all rights retained by the poet |
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