Public Domain In USA

By Scott Sekinger

This article gives you useful information about public domain in the USA.  This could help you get your creativity on, or just learn more about public domain, or just be entertain.

What is it?

Public domain is any creative work that is free to use in any way.  This includes books, characters, images, movies, etc.

There are four way something becomes public domain.

1. Works that fall into public domain by age is anything created before January 1^st, 1927.  Every year on January 1st more creative works go into Public Domain.
2. Rights have forfeited.
3. Creator puts it in public domain.

Go to Wikipedia, or Copyright Basics: Crash Course Intellectual Property 2 – YouTube, (6) Copyright and Public Domain: How to use it and where to find Free stuff – YouTube and Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States | Copyright Information Center (cornell.edu) for more information.

Where can you get Public Domain Content?

Below are 20 good sites to get public domain content free to use.

1. Public Domain Archive – a great site to get high quality public domain images.
2. Pixabay – another website to get great images
3. Unsplash – “The internet’s source of freely-usable images.”
4. The MET – A great public domain site.
5. BHL – “The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.”
6. Library of Congress – “The Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 162 million items. The collections include books, sound recordings, motion pictures, photographs, maps, and manuscripts.”
7. Project Gutenberg – “Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks”
8. Standard Books – Stanford books offers many eBooks for the book lover.
9. Wikimedia Commons – “If you are browsing Commons for the first time, you may want to start with Featured pictures, Quality images, Valued images or Featured media. You can also see some work created by our highly skilled contributors in Meet our photographers and Meet our illustrators. You may also be interested in Picture of the Year.”
10. Hubblesite – A great place to download free public domain images, and videos.
11. Internet Archive Films – Watch / download free public domain movies.
12. Public Domain Movies – Another site where you can watch free movies.
13. Public Domain Flix – Another site where you can watch free movies.
14. Sound Bible – “SoundBible.com offers free sound clips for download in either wav or mp3 format. We have free and royalty free sound effects and clips for video editors, movie scores, game designers, and weekend sound warriors. Downloads are totally free, and upfront with large download buttons to prevent confusion.”
15. Youtube Audio Library – Youtube’s audio library.
16. Open Music Archive – A great site to get public domain music.
17. Free Music Archive   – A great site to get public domain music.
18. Musicbed – “Discover a highly curated roster of label-quality musicians and composers.”
19. Librestock – “We scan and index the best free photos from the top stock sites, so that you can find that perfect image much, much quicker.”
20. Internet Achieve Cartoon Collection – A collection of public domain cartoons.

Public Domain Characters

Having trouble getting started with your story then go to the following sites for list of characters you can use for free.  If you decide to use to use one or more of the characters, try to base your version on the original characters.  Every time some makes a modification of a character it falls under a new copyright.

Below are 10 great websites you can get a free to use character from.

1. elderfingolfin
2. Public Domain Character
3. Public Domain Super Heroes
4. 10 Public Domain Superheroes That Deserve A Modern …
5. Public Domain Super Heroes
6. The Free Universe
7. 50 Best Public Domain Characters
8. 10 Public Domain Characters That Are Overdue For A Reboot
9. 10 Public Domain Characters Some-one Could Seriously Consider
10. List of 186 Public Domain Characters Shared by Marvel and DC Comics

Conclusion

In conclusion I hope you find this article useful, and informative. I hope you found something to keep you entertain, and to bring out your creativity.