Public domain

వికీపీడియా నుండి
ఇక్కడికి గెంతు: మార్గసూచీ, వెతుకు
For how the public domain applies to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Public domain. For help with tagging Wikimedia Commons files as public domain, see Commons:Help:Public domain.
This article is about public ownership of creative works. For use in relationship to public lands, see Public domain (land). For the 2003 Canadian film, see Public Domain (film).





The term public domain did not come into use until the mid-17th century, although as a concept "it can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system."[3] The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be privately owned"[3] as res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res commune was defined as "things that could be commonly enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight and ocean."[3] The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, and the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome.[3] When looking at the public domain from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res commune, res publicae, and res universitatis in early Roman Law.[3]

When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century. Instead of "public domain" they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law.[4] The phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of the public domain"[5] and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that which is left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright, patents, and trademarks, expire or are abandoned.[6] In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain."[7] Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".[8]



Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more generally, regard the public domain as a negative space, that is, it consists of works that are no longer in copyright term or were never protected by copyright law.[9] According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights and limitation on ownership.[1] A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression".[9] Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "There are certain materials – the air we breathe, sunlight, rain, space, life, creations, thoughts, feelings, ideas, words, numbers – not subject to private ownership. The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival."[10] The term public domain may also be interchangeably used with other imprecise and/or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", and the "information commons".[6]


Pamela Samuelson has identified eight "values" that can arise from information and works in the public domain.[11]:22

Possible values include:

  2. Access to cultural heritage through information resources such as ancient Greek texts and Mozart’s symphonies.
  8. Enabling competitive imitation, through for example expired patents and copyright, or publicly disclosed technologies that do not qualify for patent protection.[11]:22

Relationship with derivative works[మార్చు]


Relationship with the Information Society[మార్చు]

According to Bernt Hugenholtz and Lucie Guibault, the public domain is under pressure from the "commodification of information" as items of information that previously had little or no economic value have acquired independent economic value in the information age, such as factual data, personal data, genetic information, and pure ideas. The commodification of information is taking place through intellectual property law, contract law, as well as broadcasting and telecommunications law.[11]:1

Perpetual copyright[మార్చు]

ప్రధాన వ్యాసం: Perpetual copyright

Some works may never fully lapse into the public domain. A perpetual crown copyright is held for the Authorized King James Version of the Bible in the UK.[23] While the copyright of the play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie has expired in the United Kingdom, it was granted a special exception under the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (Schedule 6)[24] that requires royalties to be paid for performances within the UK, so long as Great Ormond Street Hospital (to whom Barrie gave the rights) continues to exist.

Application to copyrightable works[మార్చు]

Works not covered by copyright law[మార్చు]


Works created before the existence of copyright and patent laws also form part of the public domain. For example, the Bible and the inventions of Archimedes are in the public domain, but copyright may exist in translations or new formulations of these works.

Expiration of copyright[మార్చు]

Determination of whether a copyright has expired depends on an examination of the copyright in its "source country".




Government works[మార్చు]

Works of the United States Government and various other governments are excluded from copyright law and may therefore be considered to be in the public domain in their respective countries.[26] In the United States, when copyrighted material is enacted into the law, it enters the public domain. Thus, e.g., the building codes, when enacted, are in the public domain.[27] They may also be in the public domain in other countries as well. "It is axiomatic that material in the public domain is not protected by copyright, even when incorporated into a copyrighted work."[28]

Dedicating works to the public domain[మార్చు]

Few if any legal systems have a process for reliably donating works to the public domain. They may even prohibit any attempt by copyright owners to surrender rights automatically conferred by law, particularly moral rights. An alternative is for copyright holders to issue a licence which irrevocably grants as many rights as possible to the general public, e.g., the CC0 licence from Creative Commons.[29]


ప్రధాన వ్యాసం: Term of patent




Because trademarks are registered with governments, some countries or trademark registries may recognize a mark, while others may have determined that it is generic and not allowable as a trademark in that registry. For example, the drug "acetylsalicylic acid" (2-acetoxybenzoic acid) is better known as aspirin in the United States—a generic term. In Canada, however, "Aspirin" is still a trademark of the German company Bayer. Bayer lost the trademark in the United States, the UK and France after World War I, as part of the Treaty of Versailles. So many copy-cat products entered the marketplace during the war that it was deemed generic just three years later.[30]

Generic trademarks[మార్చు]

Although Hormel resigned itself to genericide,[31] it has fought attempts by other companies to register "spam" as a trademark in relation to computer products.[32]

Public domain calculators[మార్చు]

Determining whether a given work is in or out of copyright can be a complicated task. Several organisations have created calculators to help users determine if a work is in copyright. Europeana have produced a calculator for the European Union.[33] Public Domain Sherpa is designed for US copyright law.[34]

See also[మార్చు]


  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Guibault, Lucy; & Bernt Hugenholtz (2006). The future of the public domain: identifying the commons in information law. Kluwer Law International. ISBN 9789041124357.  Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
  12. Perry&Margoni (2010). "From music tracks to Google maps: who owns Computer Generated Works?". Computer Law and Security Review. Retrieved 7 September 2011. 
  15. 15.0 15.1 Introduction to intellectual property: theory and practice. Wold Intellectual Property Organisation, Kluwer Law International. 1997. p. 313. ISBN 978-90-411-0938-5. 
  23. The Oxford companion to the Bible. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. 2006. p. 618. ISBN 978-0195046458.  |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  24. "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)". Office of Public Sector Information. 1988. p. 28. Retrieved 2 September 2008. 
  26. Copyright Office Basics
  27. "Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc./Opinion of the Court – Wikisource". Retrieved 15 March 2012. 
  29. "About CC0 — "No Rights Reserved"". Creative Commons. Retrieved 23 April 2013. 
  30. Aspirin, World of Molecules
  31. SPAM® Brand and the Internet
  32. Kieren McCarthy (31 January 2005). "Hormel Spam trademark case canned". Retrieved 2 September 2008. 
  33. Out of Copyright, Europeana
  34. Public Domain Sherpa

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