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v t e

For all practical purposes on Wikipedia, the public domain comprises copyright-free works: anyone can use them in any way and for any purpose. Proper attribution to the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still required in order to comply with relevant policies.

The public domain is generally defined (e.g. by the US Copyright Office) as the sum of works that are not copyrighted, i.e.

• that were not eligible for copyright in the first place, or
• whose copyright has expired, or
• that were released into the public domain by the copyright holder.

However, there is no such thing as the public domain on the Internet. International treaties, like the Berne Convention, are not self-executing and do not supersede local law. There is no globally valid "International Copyright Law" that would take precedence over local laws. Instead, signatory countries of the Berne Convention have adapted their laws to comply with the minimum standards set forth by the treaty, often with stronger provisions than required. Whether or not something is copyright-free in some country depends on the individual country.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the legal body responsible for Wikipedia, is based in the US state of California. Although legislation is sometimes unclear about which laws are to apply on the Internet, the primary law relevant for Wikipedia is that of the United States. For re-users of Wikipedia content, it is the laws of their respective countries.

In the US, any work published before January 1, 1929, anywhere in the world is in the public domain. Other countries are not bound by that 1929 date, though. Complications arise when special cases are considered, such as trying to determine whether a work published later might be in the public domain in the US, or when dealing with unpublished works. When a work has not been published in the US, but in some other country, that other country's copyright laws also must be taken into account. Re-users of Wikipedia content also might find the explanations here useful.

• The Berne Convention is the primary legislative document governing international copyright. States that are party to the convention agree to amend their legislations to meet the minimum requirements of this convention, but the convention itself is not law. States have the right to "opt out" from a few of its paragraphs (most are mandatory and non-negotiable, though), and how any particular country implements the Berne Convention is a question of local legislation. The full text of the Berne Convention is available at the WIPO web site.
• The US Copyright Law is Title 17 of the United States Code (17 USC), chapters 1 through 8 and 10 through 12. Chapters 9 and 13 contain design protection laws on semiconductor chips and ship hulls that are of no interest or relevance for Wikipedia.
• The EU Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection is a binding directive for all member countries of the European Union, harmonizing the term of copyright. It became effective on July 1, 1995. Individual countries have amended their laws to comply with this directive. The EU legislation web site has the full text (1993), plus a 2001 amendment modifying §3(2). See Retroactive changes in copyright legislation below for some discussion.

The US Copyright Law explicitly makes clear that the Berne Convention is just a treaty, not some "super-law" that would take precedence over US law: 17 USC 104(c) states that

"No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto."

When discussing copyright issues informally (and all such discussions on Wikipedia are informal), one may nevertheless argue in terms of the Berne Convention: writing "according to §y of the Berne Convention..." is then just a short-hand for writing "according to §x of country's copyright law, which implements §y of the Berne Convention, ...". However, one should bear in mind that some paragraphs of the Berne Convention are optional, and that any country may go beyond the minimum standards specified by the Berne Convention for the most part.

Other documents

There are some other documents related to copyright issues that one occasionally comes across, but they are generally less important for Wikipedia's purposes.

• The Universal Copyright Convention (UCC, 1952 Geneva text Archived 2012-11-25 at the Wayback Machine, 1971 Paris text) was developed as an alternative international copyright treaty—it prescribed less stringent protections than the main Berne Convention. Notably, the UCC explicitly states that, if a signatory of the UCC is also a signatory of the Berne Convention, the latter should prevail. Given that most countries have since joined the Berne Convention, the UCC is largely irrelevant today. However, the adherence dates of some states to the UCC may still be of interest.
• The Rome Convention (International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations) from 1961 is a treaty augmenting the Berne Convention by copyright on performances and recordings thereof.
• The Geneva Phonograms Convention (Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms) is an additional international treaty extending copyright to sound recordings.
• The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) from 1996, effective 2002, is an extension of the Berne Convention, bringing computer programs and databases under the auspices of copyright. In the US, it is implemented by the DMCA.
• The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) from 1996 entered in force in 2002. It is an update of the Rome Convention. In the US, it was implemented as part of the DMCA.

In short: US Federal Government works, or no creative content

See also: Copyright on emblems.

US government works

US federal government works—defined as any "work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties" and including works prepared by the governments of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and US organized territories—are not eligible for copyright protection, although the federal government can "receiv and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise". It is not clear whether this applies world-wide. The US government themselves state that they "may assert copyright outside of the United States for U.S. government works".

In practice, this means that much material on *.gov and *.mil, as well as material on some *.us web sites (such as the sites of the US Forest Service), are in the public domain. Please note that not all such material is in the public domain, though:

• US governmental web sites may use copyrighted works, too; either by having licensed them or under a "fair use" provision. In general, such copyrighted works on web sites of the US federal government and its agencies are indicated by appropriate bylines. An example are "visitor image galleries" on US National Park Service websites: unless these have some indication that the photographs are placed in the public domain by publishing them on that NPS web site, these images are copyrighted by their photographers, who are visitors of national parks, not employees of the NPS. According to the CENDI FAQ on "Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright", "Copyrighted works that are not owned by the Government should be included on government web sites only with permission of the copyright owner and should include an appropriate copyright notice."
• Some US state and local governments also have web sites in the *.gov domain. State and local governments usually do retain a copyright on their works. 17 USC §105 only places federal documents in the public domain. However, laws and/or court decisions in some states may place their work in the public domain. See, for example, {{PD-CAGov}} and {{PD-FLGov}}.
• Works produced under a commission from the US government by a contractor are most likely copyrighted. This typically includes any documents from research labs. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for instance, is operated by a contractor for the US Department of Energy, but that does not mean the works it produces are "works of the federal government". ORNL works are copyrighted, and the US government is granted a non-exclusive license to use, publish, and allow republication of such works. The precise terms vary from one lab to the next, but in general, commercial re-use of their works is prohibited. This also applies to works authored by independent contractors or freelance writers or artists, even when their works are commissioned by some US government agency.
• Even the US federal government may hold copyrights, if the original copyright holder assigns or transfers the copyright to the US government. A notable example of this is the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar coin, which its designer Glenna Goodacre claimed copyright of before she transferred the design and copyright to the United States Mint. When a US government agency holds such a transferred copyright, it may declare the work to be in the public domain (or not).

Under US law, laws themselves and legal rulings also form a special class. The US Supreme Court has held that judicial opinions of both federal and state judges—being a form of case law—cannot be copyrighted.¹⁶ It has never addressed whether copyright can be claimed in other forms of law, such as statutes, legal codes, or municipal ordinances. Lower federal and state courts have varied on whether other forms of law, beyond judicial decisions, can be copyrighted.¹⁷¹³ The position of the US Copyright Office is that all "edicts of government", both domestic and foreign, cannot be copyrighted and won't register such works.¹⁸ Since copyright protection is automatic and doesn't require registration with the Copyright Office, their position may not be authoritative in a court of law, so the copyright status of laws (including laws incorporating copyrighted works by third-parties, e.g. building codes) remains unclear until settled by the US Supreme Court.

The United States Copyright Office, in its Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, has stated its position that works of the US Postal Service are not "works of the U.S. government" and thus are subject to copyright.⁶ Works of the United States Post Office Department before the formation of the US Postal Service are still considered government works and are in the public domain.^{citation needed}

Most other countries’ governments do hold copyrights, and their works are copyright protected. At the same time, many countries declare their edicts, as well as those of other countries, such as laws and court decisions, to be exempt from copyright. Such exemptions are typically narrowly defined and cannot be construed to mean “any publication by a government office”.

Works of the United Nations or its agencies or of the OAS are subject to copyright.¹⁸ Some UN documents are in the public domain; see Works of the United Nations.

Non-creative worksedit

In short: Bare facts are in the public domain. Works must show sufficient human creativity to be eligible for copyright at all.

A second category of works that in general cannot be copyright protected are those that have no (or no significant) creative content: they do not pass the threshold of originality. In the US, the classic example is a telephone directory. The names and numbers therein are, in the doctrine of case law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), "facts that were discovered", rather than the result of a creative expression or judgment. The US has explicitly rejected the position that the amount of effort involved in the discovery of a fact can justify its protection. As a result of this doctrine, addresses, phone numbers, most scientific data, sports scores, the results of polls, and similar facts are exempt from copyright.

While the facts themselves are exempt, other creative elements in a compilation of facts may warrant copyright protection. For example, Eckes v. Card Prices Update established that the specific selection of which facts to include in a list, when done as the result of a creative act, merits protection even when the individual elements do not. (See also 17 USC 103(b).) The WIPO Copyright Treaty is an international treaty that follows this concept; it has been adopted also by the European Union (EU) in its EU Database Directive, a sui generis protection that prohibits any significant "extraction" or "re-utilization" of information from a database created by significant effort. In all these cases, the copyright is on the database as a whole, i.e. the selection of the collection. The individual items in such databases still have their own copyright, which may have expired.

Similarly, though scientific data are usually exempt from copyright, the specific figures and styles of presentation used to present that data will in most cases merit copyright protection. Also, in some cases facts that are exempt from copyright may still be protected as a result of patent law.

Another class of uncreative works which are unable to claim copyright protection in the US are those resulting from mechanical reproduction. Following Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., a simple reproductive photograph of a two-dimensional artwork does not give rise to a new copyright on the photograph. Many other countries (but not all!) recognize a similar ineligibility for copyright for reproductive photographs of two-dimensional public domain works.

Common to all these cases is that only works created by a human are eligible for copyright.¹⁹

Works created by non-human animals (such as a photograph produced by a chimpanzee)¹⁹ or machines¹⁹ are not copyrightable, although in the case of drawings produced by a computer program, the program itself of course may be copyrighted. In certain cases, even graphics produced by computer programs may be copyrightable; see e.g. Stern Electronics, Inc. v. Kaufman.

Descriptions (including diagrams) in patent applications in the US are "published into the public domain" by the US Patent and Trademark Office.²⁰ Portions may contain the non-obligatory notice of copyright © or mask work Ⓜ protection, but the patent applicant must state in the text of the description that the owner of the rights in the protected part agrees to allow anyone to make facsimile reproductions of those portions of the description, but otherwise reserves all rights 37 CFR § 1.71(e).

Photographic reproductions, as a form of derivative work, may inherit the copyright of the original work. If that artwork is in the public domain, then so is the photograph.²¹ If, however, the depicted work is copyright protected, then, although there is no independent copyright on the photo itself, it cannot be considered to be in the public domain as the original rights holder still has the authority to control how reproductions of his work, including photographs, are made and distributed. The same applies to digitized images.

It should also be noted that the exemption of reproduction photographs extends only to two-dimensional artwork in the US. A photograph of a three dimensional statue may acquire copyright protection even if the statue itself belongs to the public domain. Such rights derive from the creativity involved in the positioning of camera, lighting, and other variables.

In the US, the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices of the US Copyright Office gives some concrete examples and hints at under what conditions a work is sufficiently original to be eligible for copyright.

Fonts and typefacesedit

In short: Scalable fonts as such are copyrighted as computer programs; typefaces as such may be protected by design patents, and, in a few countries, by copyright; actual use of the typeface is not restricted, even if the font used was based illegally on a protected typeface.

Under US law, typefaces and the characters they contain are considered to be utilitarian objects whose utility outweighs any merit that may exist in protecting their creative elements. As such, typefaces are exempt from copyright protection in the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer). However, this finding was limited in Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern Software, Inc., wherein it was held that scalable computer fonts, i.e., the instructions necessary to render a typeface, constitute a "computer program" for the purposes of copyright law and hence are subject to protection. Hence the computer file(s) associated with a scalable font will generally be protected even though the specific design of the characters is not. Furthermore, a rasterized representation (e.g. bitmap) of the characters in a scalable font is not protected by copyright in the United States. According to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, typography and calligraphy are not copyrightable in themselves in the US.²²²³ This treatment of fonts is not very unusual with respect to international law, and most other jurisdictions do not consider fonts subject to copyright either (with the notable exception of the UK, which however also only covers typefaces as such, as they are for example employed in fonts, and not their actual use²⁴). However, typefaces as such may be protected by design patents in many countries (either automatically, or by registration, or by some combination thereof). A prominent example is the European Union,²⁵ where the automatic protection (without registration) expires after three years and can be extended (by registration) up to 25 years.²⁶

International aspectsedit

In short: The threshold of originality varies between countries. Might even be zero.

Like the duration of copyright, eligibility to copyright in the first place is governed by national laws. The Berne Convention, §5(2) Archived 2012-09-01 at WebCite explicitly states that

The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights i.e., copyrights shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of the existence of copyright protection in the country of origin of the work.

In other words: a work that is not copyrightable in one country (even if that country is its country of origin) can still be copyrighted in other countries, if the work is copyrightable there. An example of this is File:Christoph Meili 1997-nonfree.jpg: this image is not copyrightable in its country of origin (Switzerland) by a decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.²⁷ However, in all likelihood it fulfills the criteria in other countries: it would pass the threshold of originality in the US; and it would probably also be eligible for copyright in the EU.

Mere ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such are not copyrightable as per article 2 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty.²⁸

In short: A work is published when tangible copies of it are made available to the public at large.

In the following, we will frequently refer to the "publication" of a work. A work is published when copies of the work are made accessible in some non-ephemeral form to the public at large with the consent of its author or copyright holder. Ephemeral forms of making the work accessible do not constitute publication. To quote the Berne Convention, §3.3 Archived 2012-09-01 at WebCite:

The performance of a dramatic, dramatico-musical, cinematographic or musical work, the public recitation of a literary work, the communication by wire or the broadcasting of literary or artistic works, the exhibition of a work of art and the construction of a work of architecture shall not constitute publication.

The US Copyright law defines "publication" in 17 USC 101 in basically the same way using different words:

"Publication" is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.

"Public display" includes broadcasts and other transmissions. The US Copyright Office states in its Circular 40:

A work of art that exists in only one copy, such as a painting or statue, is not regarded as published when the single existing copy is sold or offered for sale in the traditional way, for example, through an art dealer, gallery, or auction house. A statue erected in a public place is not necessarily published.

When the work is reproduced in multiple copies, such as reproductions of a painting or castings of a statue, the work is published when the reproductions are publicly distributed or offered to a group for further distribution or public display.

Thus, a work is unpublished unless copies (which may be print publications, photos, postcards, lithographs, but also non-print publications such as replicas of a statuette) of it are published. It is of course implied that such a distribution of copies occurred legally, in particular with the consent of the copyright holder. An illegal distribution of copies (for instance one that itself would be a copyright violation) does not constitute a publication of a work. The right to publish a work is an exclusive right of the copyright owner (17 USC 106), and violating this right (e.g. by disseminating copies of the work without the copyright owner's consent) is a copyright infringement (17 USC 501(a)), and the copyright owner can demand (by suing in court) that copies distributed against his or her will be confiscated and destroyed (17 USC 502, 17 USC 503).

Notwithstanding the quoted paragraph from the Berne Convention, broadcast and public performance of literary or dramatic works may constitute publication in other countries, e.g. Australia (see Infosheet G023v16: Duration of Copyright (February 2012, pg. 11)).

For works that were made available to the public in the form of sound recordings (i.e. phonograph records), it should be noted that the publication of a sound recording before January 1, 1978, does not constitute publication of any underlying musical or dramatic or literary work.²⁹ Movies and TV shows are subject to special issues with regard to publication status; see the "Movies" and "TV shows" sections for more detail.

We will get back to this issue in the sections "Published works" and "Unpublished works" below.

In short: It depends, but always at the end of the year in which it expires.

The Berne Convention was designed to ensure that works protected in the country of origin were also protected in all other signatory countries without the rights holder having to register claims in each and every one of these countries. Thus the laws of the originating country of a work determine whether something is copyright protected at all, and if so, the Berne Convention ensures that it is automatically copyright protected in all other signatory countries, too, under their respective laws (§5(1) of the Berne Convention).

(The originating country or country of origin is that country where the work was initially published, or in the case of unpublished works, defined by the author's nationality or "habitual domicile". See §3 of the Berne Convention. If a work is published within 30 days in several countries, it can have multiple "countries of origin".)

Copyright protection is granted only for a certain period—barring pathological cases where some work is placed under a perpetual copyright protection. Different countries have different copyright terms: in some countries, copyright expires 50 years after the author's death (also called "50 years p.m.a.", post mortem auctoris; this is the minimum standard required by the Berne Convention), others have a 70-year period (70y p.m.a.), Mexico even 100y p.m.a. Archived 2006-03-27 at the Wayback Machine Many countries also have special rules, depending on when a work was first published, whether it was first published in that country or not, whether the author is known or not, and other things. For instance, a work published with a © notice in the US between 1963 and 1977 (inclusive) is copyright protected in the US until 95 years after the date of the initial publication. Peter Hirtle has compiled a very useful chart (also available at Commons:Hirtle chart) showing when and under what conditions the copyright of a work expires in the US. The default rule in the US for works published since 1978 or for unpublished works is 70 years p.m.a. If a work is a "work made for hire", it has corporate authorship and is protected to the shorter of 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation. Many countries also know or at least knew different copyright terms for text and photographic works.

Basically all countries in the world specify that when a copyright expires, it does so at the end of the year. Thus, works of an author who died on June 27, 1937, did not become copyright-free on June 28, 2007, but only on January 1, 2008, under a "70 years p.m.a." rule.

Copyright term tableedit

The following table is only for works registered or first published in the United States (where works registered up to 1977 count as published works).³⁰ Note that works of employees of the U.S. federal government prepared as part of their official duties are always in the public domain regardless of the table below, and that copyright terms for sound recordings, architecture, and works first published outside the US are different; a separate table for sound recordings first published in the United States is also shown below.

Published→ Created↓	–1928		1929–1963			1964–1977		1978–28 Feb 1989	1 Mar 1989–2002	2003–	Never
–1903	PD		95 if R and N			95 if N		S+ if N*	S+	S see U and D	S see U and D
1904–1954	PD		95 if R and N			95 if N		S+ if N*	S+	S see D	S see D
1955–1977			95 if R and N			95 if N		S+ if N*	S+	S	S
1978–								S if N*	S	S	S
Sound recordings (see section below)
	–1924	1925–1946		1947–1956	1957–14 Feb 1972		15 Feb 1972–1977	1978–28 Feb 1989	1 Mar 1989–		Never
–14 Feb 1972	PD	100		110	16 Feb 2067		95++	S++	S++		S++
15 Feb 1972–							95 if N	S if N*	S		S

Green - All works are in the public domain due to copyright expiring
Yellow - Some works are in the public domain due to copyright expiring
Orange - Some works are in the public domain due to failure to conform to technicalities
Red - No works are in the public domain

Copyright term
Note: all specific dates are the first day that works are in the public domain.
PD - All works are in the public domain due to copyright expiring.
95/100/110 - Copyright expires the specified number of years after publication.
95++ - The later of 95 and 16 Feb 2067
S - Copyright expires 70 years after author's death; but if the work is anonymous or made for hire, or the author or the author's death date is unknown, copyright expires on the earlier of 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation.
S+ - The later of S and 1 Jan 2048
S++ - The later of S and 16 Feb 2067
16 Feb 2067 - Copyright term ends on specified date.

Conditions
R - Copyright was renewed in the 28th year after publication.
N - A compliant copyright notice was included.
N* - A compliant copyright notice was included, or the work was registered within five years of publication.

Notes
U - For works that are anonymous, made for hire, or where the author's identity or death date is unknown, works created 1903 and earlier are in the public domain.
D - For works not made for hire where the author's identity and death date are known, works whose author died 1954 or earlier are in the public domain.

Rule of the shorter termedit

In short: The "rule of the shorter term" says that copyright protection in any signatory country of the Berne Convention ends when the copyright expires in the originating country. This rule is not binding. The US has not adopted it; the European Union (with exceptions!), Japan, Macao, and Taiwan have done so.

While the Berne Convention does harmonize bringing works under copyright protection in the first place, it does not similarly harmonize the expiration of copyright. The Berne Convention prescribes a minimum standard for copyright terms any signatory country must adhere to (50y p.m.a.), but any signatory is free to prescribe longer durations in its laws. To be fair, §7(8) of the Berne Convention does specify a "rule of the shorter term", which says that the copyright term can in no case exceed the copyright term in the originating country of a work. However, signatory countries have the right to "opt out" from this rule, and it depends on individual countries' implementation acts whether they do follow this rule. The copyright on a work may thus expire in one country and enter the public domain there, but the same work may still be copyrighted in other signatory countries.

The United States does not recognize this "shorter term" rule while 17 U.S.C. 104(c) reads: "Any rights in a work eligible for protection under this title that derive from this title, other Federal or State statutes, or the common law, shall not be expanded or reduced by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto." Furthermore, 17 U.S.C. 104A(a)(1)(B) may restore copyright on a work published outside the USA for the remaining American copyright term even if its copyright may expire sooner in its source country.

The European Union does, however, adopt such a rule vis-a-vis non-EU members (see §7(1) of the EU directive 93/98/EEC). Within the EU itself, however, the contrary is true: §10(1) states that longer terms already running remained in effect, and §10(2) states that the 70 year p.m.a. applied to all works protected in at least one member country. As a result, there is a transitory phase in which works that were already out of copyright in one EU country suddenly became copyright protected again in that country on July 1, 1995, because they were still protected in some other EU country. See "World-War II images" below.

In East Asia, Japan, Macao, and Taiwan also honor the rule of the shorter term. See §58 of the Japanese Copyright Law Archived 2005-12-16 at the Wayback Machine, Article 51 of Decree-Law n.o 43/99/M of Macao, and Article 106bis of the Copyright Act in effect in Taiwan administered by the Republic of China.

However, some countries make exceptions to this rule. A notorious case is Germany, which has had a bilateral treaty with the US governing copyright since January 15, 1892. That treaty, which is still in effect, defined that a US work was copyrighted in Germany according to German law irrespective of the work's copyright status in the US, and it did not contain a "rule of the shorter term". In one case, a German court therefore decided that a US work that had fallen into the public domain in the US was still copyrighted in Germany in 2003 in spite of §7(1) of the EU directive.

See also OpenFlix for a useful list of countries and areas that do or do not honor the rule of the shorter term.

In short: First publication is important, but difficult to ascertain.

See also Commons:Licensing and Non-US copyrights.

Because copyright expiry is governed by local laws, some special noteworthy cases exist, in particular for photographs. These cases are interesting for Wikipedia if a work was not published in the US, because then, the law of the originating country must be examined. There is a whole slew of country-specific image copyright tags for precisely that purpose; see the list of image copyright tags. However, being in the public domain in its home country does not automatically mean that the work was also in the public domain in the US because the US does not follow the "rule of shorter term". Wherever these country-specific tags are used, they should be accompanied by a rationale explaining why the image is thought to be in the public domain in the US, too. (Remember that Wikipedia is primarily subject to US law!)

Some examples of such country-specific rules are:

• In Australia, the copyright on published photographs taken before May 1, 1969, expired 50 years after the creation. (For photographs taken later, it expired 50 years after the first publication.) As a result of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), new legislation became effective on January 1, 2005, extending the copyright term (also on photographs) generally to 70 years p.m.a, but explicitly ruling out a revival of copyright on works whose copyright had already expired. Any photographs created before January 1, 1955, are thus in the public domain in Australia. The same also holds true for other works, which were protected 50 years p.m.a. before January 1, 2005: any work published before 2005 of an author who died before January 1, 1955 is in the public domain in Australia. See Infosheet G-23: Duration of Copyright Archived 2005-10-15 at the Wayback Machine by the Australian Copyright Council. These rules even apply for works where the government holds the copyright, i.e. that are under Crown copyright. (There is the template {{PD-Australia}} for tagging such images.) See also copyright expiration in Australia.
• In Canada, any photograph created (not published!) before January 1, 1949, and not covered by Crown copyright is in the public domain. This is a consequence of the Canadian Bill C-11: An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, which replaced the old rule for photographs ("copyright expires 50 years after creation of the work") by 50 years p.m.a., but not retroactively applying the new rule to works that were already in the public domain by the effective date of the bill, January 1, 1999 (see 2 Archived 2005-12-13 at the Wayback Machine at the bottom). Wikipedia has the template {{PD-Canada}} for tagging such images.

For an exhaustive list of the current situation in many countries, see Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country. This may help dealing with such cases. UNESCO also maintains a collection of copyright laws from many countries around the world. For works (photographs and others alike, but excepting sound recordings made before February 15, 1972) not published in the US, the following rule applies:

If the work was in the public domain in the country of origin as of January 1, 1996, it is in the public domain in the US, (Even if it was published after 1929, but only if no copyright had been registered with the US Copyright Office.)

January 1, 1996, is the effective date for the copyright restorations of the US Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA).³¹ The URAA implemented TRIPS, part of the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations, in US law. The URAA essentially is codified in US law in 17 USC 104A. It had the effect of automatically restoring copyrights of works that were still copyrighted in their country of origin but whose copyright had lapsed in the US due to non-compliance with technical formalities such as proper registration of the copyright with the US Copyright Office or that were not protected in the US due to a lack of international or bilateral agreements with the country of origin. Since works that have entered the public domain in their country of origin before January 1, 1996, are not eligible to this copyright restoration, such works remain in the public domain in the US. This, however, is valid only in cases where the US federal copyright law (17 USC) applies. There are some specialized cases that are subject to state law, where other rules may apply (see the section on sound recordings below). If the country of origin became a member of the Berne Convention or the two WIPO treaties or the WTO only after January 1, 1996, the URAA still applies and that country's earliest adherence date to any of these treaties or organizations must be taken as the URAA copyright restoration date instead of January 1, 1996.

For the above cases, this means:

• Australian photographs taken before January 1, 1946, not published in the US, and where no copyright was registered in the US, are in the public domain in Australia and the US.
• Other works first published in Australia whose author has died before January 1, 1946, and where no copyright was registered in the US are also in the public domain in Australia and the US.
• Canadian photographs taken before January 1, 1946, not subject to Crown copyright, not published in the US, and where no copyright was registered in the US are in the public domain in Canada and the US.

Additionally, because of the rule of the shorter term, such photographs are likely to be also in the public domain in Europe and in Japan, unless published there. (For the EU, one may probably even apply the 1955 and 1949 cut-off dates.)

The obvious difficulty here is to show that any particular work was indeed not published in the US, especially when considering works by Canadians. Even worse, one has to show that the work was indeed first published in Australia or Canada, respectively. If it was published in the US, the whole deliberation about copyright expiry in other countries does not come to play at all—the work is copyrighted in the US (unless it was published before 1929, or in a few very specific, difficult to verify cases, see "published works" below). If the work was published first in some third country—such as the United Kingdom—that third country is the country of origin, and consequently, one has to apply that country's copyright regulations to determine whether the work's copyright had expired by January 1, 1996. There are some other problems, too:

• If a work has multiple countries of origin because it was published in several countries within 30 days, it is unclear what rules would apply. Most probably, the copyright on the work would have to be expired in all of them by January 1, 1996, for the work to be in the public domain in the US.
• It is entirely unclear how retroactive legislation would affect this rule. What if a work had been in the public domain in its country of origin on January 1, 1996, but that country subsequently modified its copyright laws such that the work's copyright was reactivated?

In summary, the rules in the US for works published abroad are as follows:

• If the work was published before 1929, it is in the public domain in the US.² (With a caveat for works published without copyright notice, see the footnote.)
• If the work was published 1929 to 1995 (inclusive) and not copyrighted in its countries of origin in 1996, it is in the public domain in the US.
• Otherwise, if the work was published before 1978, it is copyrighted in the US for 95 years after the original publication, and if it was published 1978 or later, the work is copyrighted until 70 years after the (last surviving) author's death.

While the author of a photograph can often be determined quite easily, it may be rather difficult to ascertain where and when a particular image was first published. And strictly speaking one would also have to verify that a non-US work was not covered by copyright in the US by virtue of some bilateral agreement of the US and the foreign country (see 3 Archived 2014-07-04 at the Wayback Machine and "Circular 38a" in the "external links" section below). Country-specific public domain tags must therefore be used with the utmost care only.

Crown copyrightsedit

In short: UK, Australian and Canadian Crown copyright expires world-wide, except in certain rare and specific cases.

Crown copyright is a special form of copyright on governmental works (including works made by employees of government agencies in the course of their duties) that exists in the United Kingdom and a number of other Commonwealth realms. Crown copyright for published works generally lasts for 50 years since the first publication (this is true for the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia with certain exceptions such as those outlined in the section below). When Crown copyright expires on a work in its country of origin, the work enters the public domain in that country, but it may still be copyrighted in other signatory countries of the Berne Convention because these other countries apply their own laws, which may have longer copyright terms and not even know the concept of a "Crown copyright". (See e.g. Sterling 1995 towards the end, section titled "Protection of Crown copyright in other countries". However, also note "Finally, a decision needs to be made as regards the protection of Crown copyright as between one "Crown copyright" country and another such country. Since, for example, the Crown is the owner of Crown copyright arising in Canada, can the Crown claim to be the owner of such copyright in the U.K.? If not, who could claim such copyright? These questions await resolution.")

An exception to this is UK Crown copyright. Although UK works on which the Crown copyright has expired also could still be copyrighted elsewhere, the British Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), which manages all Crown copyrights on behalf of the copyright holder (the Crown), has explicitly stated in an e-mail to Wikipedia that they consider UK Crown copyright expiry to apply world-wide. A similar declaration has been made for Australia.

There is a flowchart explaining the precise rules for UK Crown copyright expiry. For photographs the rules are as follows:

• For photographs taken before June 1, 1957, Crown copyright expires 50 years after the creation of the image. All such photographs are therefore in the public domain.
• For photographs taken after that date and published before August 1, 1989, Crown copyright expires 50 years after the first publication. For photographs created between these two dates, but published only on or after the 1989 date, Crown copyright expires on December 31, 2039.
• For photographs created on or after August 1, 1989, Crown copyright expires 125 years after the creation or 50 years after the first publication of the image, whatever is earlier.

There is the template {{PD-BritishGov}} to tag images which are claimed to be in the public domain under these rules.

Companies House - When downloading accounts for a Company listed, they are free of copyright and may be posted on any website. They are public record and statutory. The situation is the same for birth and death certificates. There is no copyright for this type of public record. Please see www.companieshouse.gov.uk.

Crown prerogative copyrightedit

In short: while Crown copyright normally expires after 50 years, Crown prerogative copyright is not subject to the normal statutory term and can instead last indefinitely.

Within Canadian Copyright law there is one exception however under section 12 of the Copyright Act which states that Crown copyright expires after 50 years "Without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown",³² which is further supported by the fact that "No enactment is binding on Her Majesty or affects Her Majesty or Her Majesty's rights or prerogatives in any manner, except as mentioned or referred to in the enactment".³³ In this way Crown Copyright held under the Royal Prerogative "is not subject to the usual statutory copyright term. The royal prerogative is referenced at the start of section 12 of the Copyright Act".³⁴ Further, the common law "prerogative right of the Crown to the exclusive printing of Acts of Parliament, Orders in Council, state papers, and other public documents is well established. The Crown prerogative, unlike rights under the Copyright Act, continues in perpetuity and is not limited to the term specified in the Act".³⁵ Professor David E. Smith further reinforces this point, stating "that this exclusive right to certain works by prerogative amounts to a perpetual term of copyright protection".³⁶ Subsequently, in certain cases such as when rights are held under the Crown prerogative, copyright can be "said to be perpetual...and not to lapse through non-use or non-assertion",³⁷ and that a "right to certain works by prerogative amounts to a perpetual term of copyright protection".³⁸

When attempting to determine copyright status, "the following facts should be kept in mind. First, section 12 grants Her Majesty rights in works prepared or published by or under her direction or control...Second, the rights granted in section 12 generally limit the protection to 50 years following the first publication of the work whereas it is arguable that Crown copyright under the Crown prerogative is perpetual. Put another way, Crown copyright under the Crown prerogative is wider in scope and duration than what section 12 provides".³⁹

Works of the United Nationsedit

In short: parliamentary documentation (official records, such as resolutions) and documents not offered for sale are in the public domain; other UN documents are copyrighted.

Works of the United Nations or one of its bodies are generally copyrighted.⁴⁰⁴¹ In the interest of facilitating dissemination, the UN explicitly excludes some categories of its works from this general copyright and places them into the public domain: UN parliamentary documentation as well as public information material published under the UN document symbol and not offered for sale.⁴¹ Such documents are in the public domain. UN parliamentary documentation comprises a broad set of official reports prepared by the UN secretariat and the UN official records.⁴² UN official records are

"publications relating to proceedings of organs or conferences of the United Nations. They include verbatim or summary records, documents and check-lists of documents, issued in the form of annexes to those records, including periodic supplements, such as the quarterly ones of the Security Council; and the reports of those organs of subordinate or affiliated bodies, compilations of resolutions, certain reports of the Secretary-General, and other selected publications".⁴³

UN resolutions are therefore in the public domain world-wide. Concerning images one should bear in mind that the UN may include in their publications (in print, on the Internet, or otherwise) images from third parties for which the UN has obtained an appropriate license.⁴¹ Such third-party images retain their copyright, even if published in an otherwise public domain UN document as mentioned above. Only UN images appearing in such documents may be assumed to be in the public domain.

In short: Copyright notices are not needed anymore. But they help determine who the author is.

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