Research Guides: Education: Copyright for Teachers

Public Domain

What is public domain?

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone.

Works fall into the public domain for three main reasons:

the term of copyright for the work has expired;
the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or
the work is a work of the U.S. Government.

As a general rule, most works enter the public domain because of old age. This includes any work published in the United States before 1923. Another large block of works are in the public domain because they were published before 1964 and copyright was not renewed. (Renewal was a requirement for works published before 1978.) A smaller group of works fell into the public domain because they were published without copyright notice (copyright notice was necessary for works published in the United States before March 1, 1989).

Public Domain Slider tool
Choose the section with the appropriate Date of First Publication, then click in the top right corner for more information about copyright for that date range.
Copyright Genie
A resource that walks you through a series of questions to help you determine if a work is covered by terms of U.S. copyright.
Copyright Term and the Public Domain
an extensive guide to copyright duration to help you research a work's copyright status

Resources for finding and accessing materials in the public domain

Project Gutenberg for books
Public Domain Information Project (PD Info) for music
Openflix for movies
Teacher Tap: Image and photo resources
Feedbooks: popular books and novels

Fair Use

Fair Use allows you to use copyrighted materials without permission. It is not sufficient to say that the use is for educational purposes and therefore fair use. A four-factor test must be applied and a balanced judgment must be made. The four factors are:

Purpose or character of the use (educational or professional)
Nature of the work used (published vs. unpublished; factual vs. creative)
Portion or amount of the work used
Impact on the market for the work (including the market for permissions)

Fair Use Evaluator
helps users collect, organize, and document the information they may need to support a fair use claim, and provides a time-stamped PDF document for the users' records. Developed by the American Library Association.
Fair Use Evaluator Tool
This tool can help you organize your thoughts around the issues, although it does NOT tell you whether a proposed use is fair or not, and does NOT provide any kind of legal advice. It simply helps you structure your own reflections about the fair use factors, and provides a record that you did consider relevant issues. No computer processes your form - the end result is only a printable record of what you entered.
Fair Use Checklist
This checklist is provided as a tool to assist you when undertaking a fair use analysis. The four factors listed in the Copyright Statute are only guidelines for making a determination as to whether a use is fair. Each factor should be given careful consideration in analyzing any specific use. There is no magic formula; an arithmetic approach to the application of the four factors should not be used. Depending on the specific facts of a case, it is possible that even if three of the factors would tend to favor a fair use finding, the fourth factor may be the most important one in that particular case, leading to a conclusion that the use may not be considered fair.

Education: Copyright for Teachers

Introduction

Public Domain

Resources for finding and accessing materials in the public domain

Fair Use