The Public Domain

Find free content and save on permission fees

Millions of creative works—books, artwork, photos, songs, movies, and more—are available copyright-free in the public domain. Frozen for decades due to lengthened copyright terms, the public domain has finally begun to grow again as copyrights for older works expire. Since 2019, classics such as The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, and early Alfred Hitchcock films have all entered the U.S. public domain.

The only book that helps you find and identify which creative works are protected by copyright and which are not, The Public Domain covers the rules for:

•  writings

•  music

•  art

•  photography

•  architecture

•  maps

•  choreography

•  movies

•  video

•  software

•  databases

•  collections

The 10th edition is completely updated to include new public domain resources and the latest legal changes to copyright protection of songs, books, photos, and other creative works, as well as public domain rules outside the U.S. It also covers when works created with artificial intelligence (AI) are in the public domain.