Public Domain

Lolly Gasaway charts WHEN WORKS PASS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN from the University of North Carolina

Definition: A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include: (1) the term of copyright for the work has expired; (2) the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or (3) the work is a work of the U.S. Government.

Hint: U.S. Government documents are great resources for informational articles. When I was starting my career, I salivated over the U.S. Government Printing Office catalogs. The booklets were free or low cost and provided content for many of my writings on budgeting, gardening, cooking, and other homemaking topics. [writers' resources]