Wikipedia:Public domain

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"WP:PD" redirects here. For the "proposed deletion" process, see Wikipedia:Proposed
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Blue tick This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline.
It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though
it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any
substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss
first on the talk page.
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For all practical purposes on Wikipedia, the public domain comprises copyright-free
works: anyone can use them in any way and for any purpose. Proper attribution to
the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still
required in order to comply with relevant policies.[1]

The public domain is generally defined (e.g. by the US Copyright Office) as the sum
of works that are not copyrighted, i.e.

that were not eligible for copyright in the first place, or

whose copyright has expired, or
that were released into the public domain by the copyright holder.
However, there is no such thing as the public domain on the Internet. International
treaties, like the Berne Convention, are not self-executing and do not supersede
local law. There is no globally valid "International Copyright Law" that would take
precedence over local laws. Instead, signatory countries of the Berne Convention
have adapted their laws to comply with the minimum standards set forth by the
treaty, often with stronger provisions than required. Whether or not something is
copyright-free in some country depends on the individual country.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the legal body responsible for Wikipedia, is based in the
US state of California. Although legislation is sometimes unclear about which laws
are to apply on the Internet, the primary law relevant for Wikipedia is that of the
United States. For re-users of Wikipedia content, it is the laws of their
respective countries.

In the US, any work published before January 1, 1927, anywhere in the world[2] is
in the public domain. Other countries are not bound by that 1927 date, though.[3]
Complications arise when special cases are considered, such as trying to determine
whether a work published later might be in the public domain in the US, or when
dealing with unpublished works. When a work has not been published in the US, but
in some other country, that other country's copyright laws also must be taken into
account. Re-users of Wikipedia content also might find the explanations here
useful.

Contents
1 Important documents
1.1 Other documents
2 Works ineligible for copyright protection
2.1 US government works
2.2 Non-creative works
2.3 Fonts and typefaces
2.4 International aspects
3 Publication
4 When does copyright expire?
4.1 Copyright term table
4.2 Rule of the shorter term
5 Country-specific rules
5.1 Crown copyrights
5.1.1 Crown prerogative copyright
5.2 Works of the United Nations
6 Published works
6.1 Current standard copyright duration in US law
7 Unpublished works
7.1 Artworks
7.2 Country-specific rules for unpublished works
8 Sound recordings
8.1 US
8.2 UK
9 Movies
9.1 Animated movies (cartoons)
10 TV shows
11 Photographs of buildings
12 Derived works and restorations of works in the public domain
13 Public records
14 Copyright restorations
14.1 Countries without copyright treaties with the US
15 Example cases
15.1 German World War II images
16 See also
17 Footnotes
18 External links
Important documents
The Berne Convention is the primary legislative document governing international
copyright. States that are party to the convention agree to amend their
legislations to meet the minimum requirements of this convention, but the
convention itself is not law. States have the right to "opt out" from a few of its
paragraphs (most are mandatory and non-negotiable, though), and how any particular
country implements the Berne Convention is a question of local legislation. The
full text of the Berne Convention is available at the WIPO web site.
The US Copyright Law is Title 17 of the United States Code (17 USC), chapters 1
through 8 and 10 through 12. Chapters 9 and 13 contain design protection laws on
semiconductor chips and ship hulls that are of no interest or relevance for
Wikipedia.
The EU Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection is a binding
directive for all member countries of the European Union, harmonizing the term of
copyright. It became effective on July 1, 1995. Individual countries have amended
their laws to comply with this directive. The EU legislation web site has the full
text (1993), plus a 2001 amendment modifying §3(2). See Retroactive changes in
copyright legislation below for some discussion.
The US Copyright Law explicitly makes clear that the Berne Convention is just a
treaty, not some "super-law" that would take precedence over US law: 17 USC 104(c)
states that

"No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be
claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention,
or the adherence of the United States thereto."
When discussing copyright issues informally (and all such discussions on Wikipedia
are informal), one may nevertheless argue in terms of the Berne Convention: writing
"according to §y of the Berne Convention..." is then just a short-hand for writing
"according to §x of country's copyright law, which implements §y of the Berne
Convention, ...". However, one should bear in mind that some paragraphs of the
Berne Convention are optional, and that any country may go beyond the minimum
standards specified by the Berne Convention for the most part.

Other documents
There are some other documents related to copyright issues that one occasionally
comes across, but they are generally less important for Wikipedia's purposes.

The Universal Copyright Convention (UCC, 1952 Geneva text Archived 2012-11-25 at
the Wayback Machine, 1971 Paris text) was developed as an alternative international
copyright treaty—it prescribed less stringent protections than the main Berne
Convention. Notably, the UCC explicitly states that, if a signatory of the UCC is
also a signatory of the Berne Convention, the latter should prevail. Given that
most countries have since joined the Berne Convention, the UCC is largely
irrelevant today. However, the adherence dates of some states to the UCC may still
be of interest.
The Rome Convention (International Convention for the Protection of Performers,
Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations) from 1961 is a treaty
augmenting the Berne Convention by copyright on performances and recordings
thereof.
The Geneva Phonograms Convention (Convention for the Protection of Producers of
Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms) is an additional
international treaty extending copyright to sound recordings.
The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) from 1996, effective 2002, is an extension of the
Berne Convention, bringing computer programs and databases under the auspices of
copyright. In the US, it is implemented by the DMCA.
The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) from 1996 entered in force in
2002. It is an update of the Rome Convention. In the US, it was implemented as part
of the DMCA.
Works ineligible for copyright protection
In short: US Federal Government works, or no creative content
See also: Copyright on emblems.
US government works
US federal government works—defined as any "work prepared by an officer or employee
of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties"[4] and
including works prepared by the governments of the District of Columbia, Puerto
Rico,[5] and US organized territories[6]—are not eligible for copyright protection,
although the federal government can "receiv[e] and hold[] copyrights transferred to
it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise".[7] It is not clear whether this applies
world-wide.[8] The US government themselves state that they "may assert copyright
outside of the United States for U.S. government works".[9]

In practice, this means that much material on *.gov and *.mil, as well as material
on some *.us web sites (such as the sites of the US Forest Service), are in the
public domain. Please note that not all such material is in the public domain,
though:

US governmental web sites may use copyrighted works, too; either by having licensed
them or under a "fair use" provision. In general, such copyrighted works on web
sites of the US federal government and its agencies are indicated by appropriate
bylines. An example are "visitor image galleries" on US National Park Service
websites: unless these have some indication that the photographs are placed in the
public domain by publishing them on that NPS web site, these images are copyrighted
by their photographers, who are visitors of national parks, not employees of the
NPS. According to the CENDI FAQ on "Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright",
"Copyrighted works that are not owned by the Government should be included on
government web sites only with permission of the copyright owner and should include
an appropriate copyright notice."[10]
Some US state and local governments also have web sites in the *.gov domain. State
and local governments usually do retain a copyright on their works. 17 USC §105
only places federal documents in the public domain.[11] However, laws and/or court
decisions in some states may place their work in the public domain. See, for
example, {{PD-CAGov}} and {{PD-FLGov}}.
Works produced under a commission from the US government by a contractor are most
likely copyrighted. This typically includes any documents from research labs. The
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for instance, is operated by a contractor for the US
Department of Energy, but that does not mean the works it produces are "works of
the federal government". ORNL works are copyrighted, and the US government is
granted a non-exclusive license to use, publish, and allow republication of such
works. The precise terms vary from one lab to the next, but in general, commercial
re-use of their works is prohibited.[12] This also applies to works authored by
independent contractors or freelance writers or artists, even when their works are
commissioned by some US government agency.[13][14]
Even the US federal government may hold copyrights, if the original copyright
holder assigns or transfers the copyright to the US government. A notable example
of this is the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar coin, which its designer Glenna
Goodacre claimed copyright of before she transferred the design and copyright to
the United States Mint.[15] When a US government agency holds such a transferred
copyright, it may declare the work to be in the public domain (or not).[13]
Under US law, laws themselves and legal rulings also form a special class. The US
Supreme Court has held that judicial opinions of both federal and state judges—
being a form of case law—cannot be copyrighted.[16] It has never addressed whether
copyright can be claimed in other forms of law, such as statutes, legal codes, or
municipal ordinances. Lower federal and state courts have varied on whether other
forms of law, beyond judicial decisions, can be copyrighted.[17][13] The position
of the US Copyright Office is that all "edicts of government", both domestic and
foreign, cannot be copyrighted and won't register such works.[18] Since copyright
protection is automatic and doesn't require registration with the Copyright Office,
their position may not be authoritative in a court of law, so the copyright status
of laws (including laws incorporating copyrighted works by third-parties, e.g.
building codes) remains unclear until settled by the US Supreme Court.
The United States Copyright Office, in its Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office
Practices, has stated its position that works of the US Postal Service are not
"works of the U.S. government" and thus are subject to copyright.[6] Works of the
United States Post Office Department before the formation of the US Postal Service
are still considered government works and are in the public domain.[citation
needed]

Most other countries’ governments do hold copyrights, and their works are copyright
protected. At the same time, many countries declare their edicts, as well as those
of other countries, such as laws and court decisions, to be exempt from copyright.
Such exemptions are typically narrowly defined and cannot be construed to mean “any
publication by a government office”.

Works of the United Nations or its agencies or of the OAS are subject to copyright.
[18] Some UN documents are in the public domain; see Works of the United Nations.

Non-creative works
Shortcut
WP:NONCREATIVE
In short: Bare facts are in the public domain. Works must show sufficient human
creativity to be eligible for copyright at all.
A second category of works that in general cannot be copyright protected are those
that have no (or no significant) creative content: they do not pass the threshold
of originality. In the US, the classic example is a telephone directory. The names
and numbers therein are, in the doctrine of case law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), "facts
that were discovered", rather than the result of a creative expression or judgment.
The US has explicitly rejected the position that the amount of effort involved in
the discovery of a fact can justify its protection. As a result of this doctrine,
addresses, phone numbers, most scientific data, sports scores, the results of
polls, and similar facts are exempt from copyright.

While the facts themselves are exempt, other creative elements in a compilation of
facts may warrant copyright protection. For example, Eckes v. Card Prices Update
established that the specific selection of which facts to include in a list, when
done as the result of a creative act, merits protection even when the individual
elements do not. (See also 17 USC 103(b).) The WIPO Copyright Treaty is an
international treaty that follows this concept; it has been adopted also by the
European Union (EU) in its EU Database Directive, a sui generis protection that
prohibits any significant "extraction" or "re-utilization" of information from a
database created by significant effort. In all these cases, the copyright is on the
database as a whole, i.e. the selection of the collection. The individual items in
such databases still have their own copyright, which may have expired.

Similarly, though scientific data are usually exempt from copyright, the specific
figures and styles of presentation used to present that data will in most cases
merit copyright protection. Also, in some cases facts that are exempt from
copyright may still be protected as a result of patent law.

This painting was produced by the chimpanzee "Congo" and is therefore not
copyrighted. The photo of the painting is not copyrightable per the Bridgeman v.
Corel ruling.
Another class of uncreative works which are unable to claim copyright protection in
the US are those resulting from mechanical reproduction. Following Bridgeman Art
Library v. Corel Corp., a simple reproductive photograph of a two-dimensional
artwork does not give rise to a new copyright on the photograph. Many other
countries (but not all!) recognize a similar ineligibility for copyright for
reproductive photographs of two-dimensional public domain works.
Common to all these cases is that only works created by a human are eligible for
copyright.[19]

Works created by non-human animals (such as a photograph produced by a chimpanzee)

[19] or machines[19] are not copyrightable, although in the case of drawings
produced by a computer program, the program itself of course may be copyrighted. In
certain cases, even graphics produced by computer programs may be copyrightable;
see e.g. Stern Electronics, Inc. v. Kaufman.

Descriptions (including diagrams) in patent applications in the US are "published

into the public domain" by the US Patent and Trademark Office.[20] Portions may
contain the non-obligatory notice of copyright © or mask work Ⓜ protection, but the
patent applicant must state in the text of the description that the owner of the
rights in the protected part agrees to allow anyone to make facsimile reproductions
of those portions of the description, but otherwise reserves all rights 37 CFR §
1.71(e).

Photographic reproductions, as a form of derivative work, may inherit the copyright

of the original work. If that artwork is in the public domain, then so is the
photograph.[21] If, however, the depicted work is copyright protected, then,
although there is no independent copyright on the photo itself, it cannot be
considered to be in the public domain as the original rights holder still has the
authority to control how reproductions of his work, including photographs, are made
and distributed. The same applies to digitized images.

It should also be noted that the exemption of reproduction photographs extends only
to two-dimensional artwork in the US. A photograph of a three dimensional statue
may acquire copyright protection even if the statue itself belongs to the public
domain. Such rights derive from the creativity involved in the positioning of
camera, lighting, and other variables.

In the US, the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices of the US Copyright
Office gives some concrete examples and hints at under what conditions a work is
sufficiently original to be eligible for copyright.

Fonts and typefaces

Shortcut
WP:PDFONT
In short: Scalable fonts as such are copyrighted as computer programs; typefaces as
such may be protected by design patents, and, in a few countries, by copyright;
actual use of the typeface is not restricted, even if the font used was based
illegally on a protected typeface.
Under US law, typefaces and the characters they contain are considered to be
utilitarian objects whose utility outweighs any merit that may exist in protecting
their creative elements. As such, typefaces are exempt from copyright protection in
the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp.
vs. Ringer). However, this finding was limited in Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern
Software, Inc., wherein it was held that scalable computer fonts, i.e., the
instructions necessary to render a typeface, constitute a "computer program" for
the purposes of copyright law and hence are subject to protection. Hence the
computer file(s) associated with a scalable font will generally be protected even
though the specific design of the characters is not. Furthermore, a rasterized
representation (e.g. bitmap) of the characters in a scalable font is not protected
by copyright in the United States. According to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright
Office Practices, typography and calligraphy are not copyrightable in themselves in
the US.[22][23] This treatment of fonts is not very unusual with respect to
international law, and most other jurisdictions do not consider fonts subject to
copyright either (with the notable exception of the UK, which however also only
covers typefaces as such, as they are for example employed in fonts, and not their
actual use[24]). However, typefaces as such may be protected by design patents in
many countries (either automatically, or by registration, or by some combination
thereof). A prominent example is the European Union,[25] where the automatic
protection (without registration) expires after three years and can be extended (by
registration) up to 25 years.[26]

International aspects
In short: The threshold of originality varies between countries. Might even be
zero.
Like the duration of copyright, eligibility to copyright in the first place is
governed by national laws. The Berne Convention, §5(2) Archived 2012-09-01 at
WebCite explicitly states that

The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights [i.e., copyrights] shall not be
subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of
the existence of [copyright] protection in the country of origin of the work.
In other words: a work that is not copyrightable in one country (even if that
country is its country of origin) can still be copyrighted in other countries, if
the work is copyrightable there. An example of this is File:Christoph Meili 1997-
nonfree.jpg: this image is not copyrightable in its country of origin (Switzerland)
by a decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.[27] However, in all likelihood it
fulfills the criteria in other countries: it would pass the threshold of
originality in the US; and it would probably also be eligible for copyright in the
EU.

Mere ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such are

not copyrightable as per article 2 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty.[28]

Publication