Saturday, August 28, 2010

Rules of Thumb For Public Domain Works

By Yvon Anderson
Public domain is consists of vast material that includes books, music, photos and information that is available for the public. There are times that you find yourself having difficulty in distinguishing if a certain work belongs to the public domain, because the laws governing it are sometimes complicated and are always changing. However, you need not to worry

anymore abut that because here are some terms and conditions for using public domain works as well the rule of the thumb in determining works:

1. First thing about on how to distinguish it and perhaps the most common is when you look at the publication date and the place where it is published and that it is prior to the year 1923, automatically you can say that it is in the realms of public sphere.

2. Now there are some modifications and new rules governing the legality of the publication of a certain work for those works published or released between 1923 and March 1, 1989. Because there are some works that was created during these years that have not been able to follow certain regulations. In other words, some works do not provide a notice of copyright on the work or the renewal of the copyright per statutory deadlines. Specifically, we can say that it is already considered to be a category belonging in the public sphere if a certain work was published in the United States during the range of the year 1923 and 1978 without any notice then we can say that yes it is belonging to the public domain. On the other hand, if the work was publish in the United States during the range of the year 1978 and March 1, 1989 to be exact, still without any notice and registration, then it is still considered to be in the public domain. Even if a certain work was published in the United States during the year 1923 and 1963 with a notice and the copyright do not apply for a renewal, we can still say that it belongs in the United States.

3. Now for those works that has been created after March 1, 1989, works that has published or not are protected by copyrights for 70 years from the date the creator dies. In addition, those works for corporate authorship (works made for hire), the copyright term is the shorter of 95 years from publication or up to 120 years from the date of creation.

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