- Also called:
- public sphere or commons
- Related Topics:
- Domain
Public domain
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What does 'public domain' mean in property law?
In property law, "public domain" refers to creative works or inventions with unprotected intellectual property rights. These works are free for anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute for commercial and noncommercial purposes. Creative work can fall into the public domain if it was produced before intellectual property laws, if the legal protection time expires, or if the work is exempt from copyright protection (e.g., mathematical formulas). The public domain promotes new creativity, furthers education, improves public health and safety, and helps preserve cultural heritage.
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How is something different when it is in the public domain compared to private property?
In property law, the public domain differs significantly from private property. Public domain refers to creative works or inventions with expired or waived intellectual property rights, making them freely available for anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute for commercial or noncommercial purposes. This promotes creativity, education, and cultural preservation by removing legal or monetary barriers to their use.
Private property, conversely, is land or creative works owned by an individual or entity, granting them exclusive rights to possess, use, and dispose of it as they see fit, within legal limits. These rights are protected by law, ensuring owners can control their property and benefit from it.
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What are examples of things that can exist in the public domain?
The public domain includes creative works and inventions unprotected by intellectual property law like copyright and patent law. Because these works are not subject to ownership, anyone can use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute them for commercial or noncommercial purposes.
Examples of things that can exist in the public domain:
* Works for which the copyright has expired, such as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
* Works that predate intellectual property laws, like the plays of William Shakespeare
* Mathematical formulas
* Works that creators put in the public domain by ceding their copyright, using tools like Creative Commons' CC0 public dedication option
* Patents that have expired
* Government documents in most countries6 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How does land or property enter the public domain?
Land or property can enter the public domain through several ways:
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Abandonment When an owner relinquishes possession of a property with the intent to terminate all ownership interests, it results in abandonment. The first taker then gains full ownership.
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Escheat In the U.S., if a property owner dies without a will and no heirs can be found, the property escheats to the state, county, or city.
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Eminent Domain The government has a right to take private property for public use via eminent domain.
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Public Land Land owned directly by the government is considered public domain.
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What rights do people have to use property in the public domain?
The public domain consists of creative works unprotected by intellectual property law. These works are available for anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute for commercial and noncommercial purposes. This freedom promotes new creativity, furthers education, improves public health and safety, and helps preserve cultural heritage.
Creative work can enter the public domain for a variety of reasons, such as if it was produced before intellectual property laws were written, the length of time during which a work is legally protected has run out, or the works are exempted from copyright protection altogether.
It is worth noting that, while most works in the public domain may not be copyrighted again, copyrights for new versions of those works may be granted.
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How do governments manage and protect property in the public domain?
The public domain consists of creative works and resources that are free from intellectual property protection, allowing anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute them for any purpose. Governments manage and protect property in the public domain through various means, including:
- Intellectual property law Creative work falls into the public domain because it was produced before intellectual property laws, the length of time during which a work is legally protected might run out, and some works are exempted from copyright protection altogether.
- Environmental regulation Environmental regulations limit the amount of a given toxin or pollutant that may be emitted into the air or into the water supply and attempt to preserve natural areas in their natural form.
- Historical preservation regulation Historical preservation regulation normally places tight controls on changes in the exterior appearance of buildings.
- Resource management Most vertical legislation erects a management regime, usually carried out under the direction of an administrative agency, which is given jurisdiction over defined areas.
- Forest management Responsible stewardship was necessary to effectively manage the nation’s forests to ensure that they would continue to supply essential resources like timber, clean water, and other ecosystem services for future generations.
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Public domain, category of creative works that are unprotected by intellectual property law. Since these works cannot be owned, they are free for anyone to use, adapt, reproduce, or distribute for commercial and noncommercial purposes.
Creative work falls into the public domain for a variety of reasons. A work might have been produced before any intellectual property laws were written, as were William Shakespeare’s plays. The length of time during which a work is legally protected might run out, such as the copyright for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. And some works are exempted from copyright protection altogether, being born into the public domain directly (e.g., mathematical formulas).
The concept of the public domain is valuable to the general welfare because creative material that falls within it lacks any legal or monetary impediment to its full use. This freedom promotes new creativity by allowing any creator to build on the work, furthers education by lowering the cost to access information, improves public health and safety by distributing medical knowledge, and helps to preserve cultural heritage, among other social benefits. Indeed, to some degree a vibrant public domain is required for a society to function. It would not do to have facts, laws, scientific theorems, or short phrases be owned by private individuals. Consequently, the arrival of new creative works in the public domain every year is observed and celebrated by some organizations as Public Domain Day. In most countries, this day falls on January 1.
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Theoretically, almost every creative work will eventually enter the public domain. The commonly understood purpose of intellectual property law is to spur innovation by temporarily giving creators the exclusive rights to whatever they invent before that work becomes available for general use. The length of time that creative works are withheld from the public domain varies according to the intellectual property right being reserved and by country. Most countries grant patents to new inventions for up to 20 years, while trademarks may be used indefinitely—although, since trademarks are registered with governments, it is up to each government to decide whether it will recognize a mark. The international standard for copyright protection, enshrined by the Berne Convention, is the duration of the creator’s life plus 50 years, but some countries, such as the United States, have extended that protection by an extra 20 years, largely due to the lobbying efforts of corporate rights holders. These deviations mean that, like trademarks, a work that has fallen into the public domain in one country may have a different status in another.
Countries also differ on whether works in the public domain can be re-copyrighted. The United States has had a two-tiered approach to the issue since 1994, when Congress passed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) in order to bring U.S. copyright laws into accord with the Berne Convention. Prior to that year, the law stipulated that a creative work fell into the public domain if its rights holder did not renew the claim with the U.S. Copyright Office. The URAA, however, requires that copyright protection be provided to all creative works by foreign authors so long as those works’ copyright terms have not expired in their countries of origin. As a result, the U.S. government had to remove many foreign works from the public domain while leaving broadly equivalent works of U.S. citizens within it. These retroactive copyrights for foreign works were upheld by the Supreme Court in the 2012 case of Golan v. Holder.
Although most works in the public domain may not be copyrighted again, copyrights for new versions of those works may be granted. Adaptations, translations, and annotated versions of public domain material all qualify for new copyrights, so long as they are sufficiently original. A person may receive the exclusive rights to a new arrangement of public domain material or to photographic reproductions of it, as presentation itself is considered a form of creative expression. A claim to a simple list or table of contents from public documents, however, is unlikely to be accepted.