Wikipedia is built on the public domain – Diff

Wikipedia is built on the public domain – Diff
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Image
by the US Department of Agriculture, public domain/CC0.
Wikipedia is built to be shared and remixed. This is possible, in part, thanks to the incredible amount of material that is available in the public domain. The public domain refers to a wide range of creations that are not restricted by copyright, and can be used freely by anyone. These works can be copied, translated, or remixed, so the public domain provides a crucial foundation for new creative works. On Wikipedia, some articles are based on text from
older public domain encyclopedias
or include
images no longer protected by copyright
. People regularly use public domain material to bring educational content to life and create
interesting new ways
to share it further.
There are three basic ways that material commonly enters the public domain.
First, when you think of the public domain, you may think of the very old creations that have expired copyright. In the United States and many other countries, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years. Works published before 1923 are in the public domain, but the rest are governed by complex copyright rules. Peter B. Hirtle of Cornell University created a
helpful chart
to determine when the copyright terms for various types of works will expire in the U.S.. Due to the copyright term extension in the
1976 Copyright Act
and later amendments, published works from the United States will not start entering the public domain until 2019. In places outside of the U.S., copyright terms expire
after shorter terms
on January 1, celebrated annually as
public domain day
Second, a valuable contributor to the public domain is the U.S. federal government. Works
created by the U.S. government
are in the public domain as a matter of law. This means that government websites may provide a rich source of freely usable photographs and other material. A primary purpose of copyright is to promote creation by rewarding people with exclusive rights, but the government does not need this sort of incentive. Government works are already funded directly by taxpayers, and should belong to the public. Putting the government’s creations in the public domain allows everyone to benefit from the government’s work.
Third, some authors choose to dedicate their creations to the public domain. Tools like
Creative Commons Zero
(CC0) allow people to mark works that the public can freely used without restrictions or conditions. CC0 is used for some highly creative works, like the photographs on
Unsplash
. Other creators may wish release their works freely, but still maintain some copyright with minimal conditions attached. These users may adopt a license like
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
(CC BY-SA) to require other users to provide credit and re-license their works. Most of the photographs on
Wikimedia Commons
and all the articles on
Wikipedia
are freely available under CC BY-SA. While these works still have copyright and are not completely in the public domain, they can still be shared and remixed freely alongside public domain material.
In the coming years, legislators in many countries will consider writing new copyright rules to adapt to changes in technology and the economy. One important consideration is how these proposals will protect the public domain to provide room for new creations. The European Parliament has already begun
considering a proposed change
to the Copyright Directive, including concerning new rights that would make the public domain less accessible to the public. As copyright terms have been extended over the past few decades,
works from the 1960s remain expensive and inaccessible
that would otherwise be free of copyright. As we consider changing copyright rules, we should remember that everyone, including countless creators, will benefit from a rich and vibrant public domain.
Stephen LaPorte
, Senior Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
Interested in getting more involved? Learn more about the
Wikimedia Foundation’s position on copyright
, and join the
public policy mailing list
to discuss how Wikimedia can continue to protect the public domain.
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Archive notice:
This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.
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