The Domain of the Public

October 24, 2003 | Public Service | By: Mark VandeWettering

This week has been dominated by pondering of the public domain. I ordered a book from nolo.com written by attorney Steven Fishman entitled
The Public Domain: How to Find Copyright-Free Wrightings, Music, Art and More. It’s a very easy to read and well written guide to the world of copyright and the public domain, and attempts to answer many practical questions regarding the public domain. Brewster Kahle suggested it on a posting to archive.org, and I second his recommendation. Very useful reference.


Slashdot is reporting about various industry groups like the MPA and APRA which are lobbying Australia to extend Australian copyrights from life+50 years to life+75 years. One
can only hope that the people down under will have better sense than Sony Bono.

Addendum: There are many books which are in the public domain in Australia which are not in the US. Hence, there is a special branch of Project Gutenberg:
Project Gutenberg of Australia

which holds these works. Nifty.

The Center for the Public Domain also appears to have some interesting articles on intellectual property law and the public domain.