Free IP – Public Domain, Creative Commons and Free Use Licenses. Repackage The Public Domain For Profit.
Intellectual Property, often abbreviated as “IP”, includes copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Intellectual property laws protect creators and authors of intellectual property so that they can be the first to benefit or profit from their creations. However, most intellectual property, specifically copyrights, are not protected forever. Eventually, it falls into the public domain, and it when it does, anyone can use it for any purpose. The public domain is often abbreviated as “PD”. Beyond the public domain there are other licenses which are discussed on this page that allows intellectual property to be used, even for commercial purposes. This means that you can legally profit from the intellectual property of others under very specific circumstances. This page is not written by a lawyer or any legal authority. It is for informational purposes only.
IP Disambiguation: IP can also stand for “internet protocol”. Your IP address is a marker for your specific computer or device. It is not related to intellectual property, which is the topic of this page. However, you can find your own IP address by typing “IP” in a Google search.
Works that are protected by copyright often have the copyright “C”, (C) or © to indicate that the work is protected. Works that are protected by copyright are often called “proprietary” works.
Repackage The Public Domain For Profit
There are various types of property. Intellectual property is intangible or incorporeal property, but it still has value, even when it falls into the public domain. Legally using other people’s intellectual property is one way to use other people’s resources to start a business. You can repackage the public domain for profit and you will not have to pay for the property that you’re selling.
Since you do not have to pay to create this property or use this property, the profit that you can get from selling it is theoretically free. Obviously your business could have other expenses, such as printing costs if you’re publishing hard copies, or hosting costs if you’re reselling the public domain online.
There are multiple ways to repackage the public domain. You can sell works individually or in collections. You can publish online or offline, or you can use it to create new property for which you’ll own the copyright, and you can sell licenses to works that you own. The portion that is in the public domain will always be in the public domain, but if you own rights to the other portion, then the work as a whole cannot be resold without your permission. You could also give away public domain works on a website and collect advertising revenue from the site (see “freemium” below)
A simple example of repackaging the public domain would be to republish and sell classic books where the copyright has expired. For example, you can republish Huckleberry Finn. Since the text is in the public domain, you will not have to pay royalties to any of Mark Twain’s heirs.
Public Domain Myths
Some people believe that anything published on the internet is in the public domain. That is FALSE. All works are protected regardless of how they are published, unless the protection expires or unless the author dedicates the work to the public domain.
Some people believe that anything which is not professionally published is in the public domain. That is FALSE. All works are protected regardless of how they are published, unless the protection expires or unless the author dedicates the work to the public domain. Someone can write a book, print it on their home computer and put it in a 3-ring binder and it is protected by copyright.
Some people believe that anything without a copyright notice is in the public domain. That is FALSE. All works are protected regardless of how they are published, unless the protection expires or unless the author dedicates the work to the public domain. However, including a copyright notice does help the author protect the work better. In some cases the author will have to prove they created the work and when they created it if they expect to keep the work’s commercial value.
Some people believe that anything with a copyright notice is protected. That is FALSE. There are plenty of works with a copyright notice but where the copyright has expired. The copyright does not last forever, but a new copyright can apply if the work was modified in any way.
Some people believe that even if it’s not in the public domain, it can be used for personal, non-commercial use. That is technically FALSE even if you’re not gaining a profit or using it for commercial purposes. However, to enforce the copyright the author would have to be aware that you used it and then he or she would have to feel it’s worth it to enforce it. Fair Use applies in specific circumstances (see below). However, you cannot steal proprietary work for personal use. If it’s proprietary and it’s for sale, then you have to pay for it to use it legally.
Some believe that a work cannot be used under any circumstances unless it is in the public domain. That is FALSE. There are other “free use” licenses that are described below.
Some believe that “royalty-free” is the same thing as the public domain. That is FALSE. They are totally different. A better description of both is found below.
Some people believe that works in the public domain have no protection at all. That is FALSE. There are other laws which can prevent the use of a particular work, such as personal property laws, privacy laws, and trademarks. Huckleberry Finn might be in the public domain, but that doesn’t mean you can steal a book from the library and sell it on eBay. The book itself is the personal property of the library. Many works in museums are in the public domain, but that doesn’t mean you can take a painting off the wall to scan it and reproduce it. A photographer might take a photograph of a person and dedicate that photograph to the public domain. All that means is that the photographer has forfeited all his or her own rights to the photograph. It does not mean anyone can use the photograph because the person in the photograph has rights to their own privacy. A business can use property in the public domain and incorporate it into a trademark. Trademarks are good for as long as the business is in operation and even beyond. So competing businesses would not be able to use the same work, even if it’s in the public domain. This is one way that Disney has been able to protect Mickey Mouse. Even though Steamboat Willie was published in 1928 and was due for public domain status, Mickey Mouse is a trademark of Disney. (Disney and others also lobbied for additional copyright legislation which is why we have the current copyright rules described below). It is also possible to copyright a collection of works or a database. Even if all the works within a collection are in the public domain, the owner of that collection can restrict the redistribution of that exact collection.
Read more on Public Domain Sherpa.
Is The Public Domain Actually Free?
It is possible to get works that are in the public domain for free. There are multiple resources online, which are listed under Web Freebies. As long as the work is not protected by other laws mentioned above, and as long as you don’t have to pay to gain access to the work, then public domain works are actually free.
However, it can often be worth it to purchase access to a work in the public domain or access to collections of works in the public domain depending on what your goals are for using those works, if the works cannot be found anywhere else or if it would take too much time to find the works on your own. Purchasing a collection can save considerable time, which is valuable in any business. You may also have to pay for restoration services, since many works in the public domain are old, deteriorated and in poor quality.
When Do Works Fall Into the Public Domain?
When the copyright of a work expires, that work falls in the public domain, and it is open to be used by anyone for virtually any purpose, whether for personal or commercial use, unless protected by other laws.
In the United States, works published or created since 1978 are protected by copyright for the life of the creator plus 70 years. If the creator produced the work while hired by a corporation, then the work is protected by copyright for 120 years after creation, or 95 years after publication, which ever is shorter.
Works created before 1978 but published after may be protected until 2047. Works that received copyright before 1978 had to file a renewal with the Library of Congress. Those which did not are in the public domain.
All works created before 1923 are in the public domain.
All works created by the federal government, or employees of the federal government while on the clock are in the public domain. However, private entities that are fully or partially funded by the government, such as PBS or the Postal Office, can retain copyrights. (The NASA logo is protected, but most NASA media does not have have copyright protection).
Any works that are dedicated to the public domain by the author are in the public domain. This could also be called a “copyleft” license, or one of many others described below. Yet, the author can quite possibly rescind the dedication, especially if it becomes commercially valuable. Sometimes copyrights are retained but not enforced because there is no perceived value. The movie It’s A Wonderful Life became a Christmas classic because TV networks aired it frequently. They thought that it was in the public domain, and as such they didn’t have to pay royalties. When it was produced initially it wasn’t a very big success and that’s why the copyright was assumed to be expired. However, when it became commercially valuable, the copyright owners began enforcing their copyright claim (Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207 (1990)).
Works can be in the public domain in one country, but not in another. Most countries have their own copyright laws which do not overlap 100% with the US or other countries.
For more details, refer to The Public Domain: How To Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More by Nolo.
When do Patents Expire?
Patents are different from copyrights, but those who are visiting this page may also find it useful to know when patents expire.
“For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, the patent term is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. or international (PCT) application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications).
For applications filed before June 8, 1995 and for patents that were still in force on June 8, 1995, the patent term is either 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. or international (PCT) application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications), the longer term applying.”
Source: Term of patent in the United States on Wikipedia.
Other “Free Use” Licenses
The public domain is not the only possible way to legally use other people’s intellectual property. There are multiple other “free use” licenses, many of which are actually free, although some are not.
Purchasing Copyright Vs Purchasing A License
An author or creator can choose to sell their copyright or license it to others for use. If he or she sells the license instead of the copyright itself, then they retain rights to their property which can allow them to make additional profit. When they sell the copyright itself, then all rights transfer completely to the new owner. Some authors retain the copyright but give “free use” licenses to anyone who wants it. See Creative Commons below.
Royalty Free Is NOT Necessarily Free
Using proprietary intellectual property can involve both licensing fees and royalty fees. The licensing fee generally gives you a right to use it in the first place, and royalties are a percentage of profit for every copy sold. Even if you don’t have to pay royalties, you could still have to pay the initial licensing fee.
Free To Share, Resell Rights, Master Resell Rights, White Label Rights, Bundling Rights
Sometimes the license for a particular work is published or dedicated within the work itself, especially within independently published ebooks. Other publishing for profit models include membership sites, video tutorials and print-on-demand services. Part of the ebook self-publishing business model could include a redistribution license to add value to the ebook. This can allow the buyer to possibly regain their investment by selling the same title they purchased or it allows the spreading or sharing of the work virally. An ebook or other work that is “free to share” means that you can share it with friends usually without profit. There would be no charge for pirating because the author wants you to share it. An ebook with resell rights means that you can resell the ebook. Sometimes the license will specify a specific price or price range that is permissible. Master resell rights means that you can resell the ebook and sell the resell rights. If it does not have master resell rights then your customers could buy it from you to use for themselves, but they cannot resell it to try to regain what they spent to buy it. White Label rights means that you have the right to put your name on it or your business’ name as if you were the one who produced the work. It’s akin to ghost writing except the work is already produced instead of having to hire a writer to create it from scratch. Bundling rights means the work can be bundled in a package with other works.
Fair Use
Fair Use allows the use of a work, even proprietary works, for educational and non-commercial purposes. Its very similar to a “creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, no derivative works” license (see below). You must always give credit to the original source material, and it generally applies to summaries or excerpts of a work, not the entire work as a whole.
“Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. Fair use provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor test.” (source: Wikipedia)
- Purpose and character of use: must generally be for non-commercial or non-profit purposes
- Nature of copyrighted work: some works, such as facts and ideas, cannot be copyrighted. So if the work is non-fiction then it may have less protection. (This does not mean you can copy all non-fiction and use it however you want, but you can explain the same facts in a different way)
- Amount and sustainability: fair use generally allows only a portion of the work to be used, such as a quote out of the original work. This does not mean that the entire work cannot be used, but when a defendant has to justify their use in court of law, it is a much weaker defense if they used the entire work.
- Effect upon the work’s value: fair use is not intended to harm the copyright owner’s earning potential for their work. Even if you don’t plan on reselling the work, if it’s for sale and you want to use it as a whole, then you have to pay for it. If you steal it for your own personal use, then you’ve technically prevented the author from gaining a sale and fair use does not protect against that.
Copyleft License
“Copyleft (a play on the word copyright) is the practice of offering people the right to freely distribute copies and modified versions of a work with the stipulation that the same rights be preserved in derivative works down the line.”
Read more about Copyleft on Wikipedia.
The Unlicense
“The Unlicense is a public domain equivalent license with a focus on an anti-copyright message. It was first published on January 1 (Public Domain Day), 2010.”
Read more about the Unlicense on Wikipedia.
Copyfree
“The Copyfree Initiative defines Copyfree as a type of permissive copyright license which falls under their Copyfree Standard Definition. Copyfree licenses include the Simplified BSD licence, the Open Works license, and others, but excludes the GNU GPL or other copyleft licenses. The Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication and the WTFPL license are also considered to be copyfree, as are other public domain equivalent licenses.”
Source: Wikipedia.
The Creative Commons Has Various Levels Of Free Use
“Creative Commons is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.”- CreativeCommons.org.
The creative commons have created multiple licenses that allow people to use, remix and build upon the creative works of others. There are some very popular resources online which use creative commons licenses, such as Wikipedia and Flikr.
Works that are licensed with a Creative Commons license will have a “CC” instead of the copyright C or ©. The following are some simplified descriptions of these licenses.
Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY)
“This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.”
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Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License (CC BY-SA)
“This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.”
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Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works License (CC BY-ND)
“This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.”
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Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License (CC BY-NC)
“This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.”
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Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike License (CC BY-NC-SA)
“This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.”
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Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative Works License (CC BY-NC-ND)
“This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.”
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Creative Commons Public Domain (CC0)
Authors can use Creative Commons tools to dedicate works to the public domain. If you see “CC0” it is the same as if you see “PD” or “public domain”.
More on the Public Domain Mark.
Free Use Licenses For Software
Since the very beginning of software development there have been two opposing philosophies. There’s the group of developers that believe that software should always be free, and there’s the group that has always sought to gain profit from software. (We know which side Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs are on). Read more of this history in the book Free: The Future of A Radical Price by Chris Anderson. Free Software is very much like other community freebies, including the culture and philosophies of those who participate.
When discussing free software licenses, it’s important to make the distinction between “free” as in “free speech” and “free” as in “free beer”. One means freedom to do something (liberty or libre) and the other means free of cost ($0 or gratis). See Gratis vs Libre.
“Free software is a matter of liberty, not price: users, individually or collectively, are free to do what they want with it, including the freedom to redistribute the software free of charge, or to sell it, or charge for related services such as support or warranty for profit.” Free Software is different from Freeware (see below).
Various licenses for software will describe whether it’s free of cost, free to use, free to make copies, free to modify, or free to distribute.
Protective (Reciprocal) Free Software Vs Permissive Free Software
“A permissive software license, sometimes also called BSD-like or BSD-style license, is a free software license with minimal requirements about how the software can be redistributed. Examples include the MIT License, BSD licenses, Apple Public Source License and the Apache license. As of 2016, the most popular free software license is the permissive MIT license.
The Open Source Initiative defines a permissive software license as a “non-copyleft license”. GitHub’s choose a license website described the MIT permissive license as, ‘lets people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and don’t hold you liable.'”
Source: Permissive Software License on Wikipedia.
BSD Licenses
“BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and redistribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have reciprocity share-alike requirements. The original BSD license was used for its namesake, the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix-like operating system. The original version has since been revised and its descendants are more properly termed modified BSD licenses. BSD is both a license and a class of license (generally referred to as BSD-like). The modified BSD license (in wide use today) is very similar to the license originally used for the BSD version of Unix. The BSD license is a simple license that merely requires that all code licensed under the BSD license be licensed under the BSD license if redistributed in source code format. BSD (unlike some other licenses) does not require that source code be distributed at all.”
Source: BSD Licenses on Wikipedia
WTFPL (Do What the F*#k You Want To Public License)
“The WTFPL (Do What the F*#k You Want To Public License) is a permissive license most commonly used as a free software license. As a public domain-like license, the WTFPL is essentially the same as dedication to the public domain.”
Source: WTFPL on Wikipedia.
Gotta love those software developers that come up with such family-friendly names for their licenses.
GNU Free Documentation License
This license was created by the Free Software Foundation to encourage a mass collaborative effort for the development of free software. Hence, this license often applies to software, but it has been used for other purposes as well, such as images on Wikipedia.
Read more on the various GNU Licenses.
Other Descriptions of Free Software and freeware
The following descriptions are not licenses, but they are descriptions of software that can either be free to use (libre) or free of cost (gratis).
Open Source Software
Open Source Software is software where the source code is made available with a license in order to provide open collaboration for the software.
Read more on open source software on the Open Source Initiative and Wikipedia.
FOSS or FLOSS Software
FOSS stands for “Free and Open Source Software”. FLOSS stands for Freely Licensed Open Source Software. It’s not necessarily freeware (below), but it can be.
Freeware
“Freeware is software that is available for use at no monetary cost. In other words, while freeware may be used without payment it is most often proprietary software, as usually modification, re-distribution or reverse-engineering without the author’s permission is prohibited.”
Those in the software industry do not use “freeware” and “free software” interchangeably. Freeware is free of cost, Free Software is libre or free to use and/or modify.
Read more about Freeware on Wikipedia.
Freemium
“Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product or service (typically a digital offering or application such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but money (premium) is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods.”
Freemium is often supported by advertising. Read more on Freemium.
Shareware
Generally free to download for personal use and free to share with others. Read more on shareware. Some types of shareware are adware (supported by ads), trialware (time-limited use, like a free trial), demoware (used for demonstration, all features may not be available), nagware (continues to let you use it but constantly reminds you to pay for it), and others.
Abandonware
Software code that is either finished or unfinished which may still be under copyright, however it may be unclear who the copyright owner is, or the copyright may not be enforced because the software is old and outdated.
Webware
Also called web-based applications. Software that is hosted on a website and can be accessed through the internet browser. Usually it does not require a download, but it does require internet access. Web-based applications can be free, or they can be sold as SaaS (software as a service).
The Web Freebies directory will list resources that are clearly identified, whether for personal or commercial use. However, it is important to do whatever research you can for every specific work that you use. For example, flikr has many images in the public domain or licensed with a Creative Commons license, but there are many images on the site where all rights are reserved. You must know the copyright status or license that is applied to each and every work that you use. It’s not sufficient to take it from a website that generally claims to provide “free use” intellectual property.
Again this page was not written by a lawyer or any legal authority. It is for informational purposes only. One or more links on this page are affiliate links.
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