So what the heck is the Public Domain anyway? You probably already have a very broad understanding of what the Public Domain is or you wouldn’t be here.

According to Webster’s Dictionary Public Domain refers to “the realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone”

Here’s my definition as it relates to us as information publishers and online entrepreneurs:

“The Public Domain is a huge body of works in the form of written books, courses, articles, images, films, and all sorts of other intellectual properties that have for one reason or another lapsed from copyright protection meaning that we as individuals can take them and use them in anyway we see fit both legally and morally for the purposes of repackaging the works and selling them for profit.”

You see, it’s really simple. The term Public Domain is just a term used to describe the millions of works that have been produced over the last century or so that no longer have copyright protection.

When a work is no longer protected because the copyright has expired anyone can take that work and do whatever they want with it legally.

Any intellectual property published in just about every country is protected by copyright laws so no one else can take that same work and publish it as their own product. The owner of the copyright for the work is automatically granted certain exclusive private rights to the work and the owner alone has control of how the work is presented and distributed.

Anyone caught in violation of copyright laws is said to have committed copyright infringement and will most likely end up in court very quickly. Um, trust me on this – I know!

Copyrighted works are protected for a certain number of years and then eventually the copyrights expire and the work falls into the Public Domain. Then the work is no longer protected by copyright and anyone can do anything they want with the work without having to worry about getting sued or landing themselves into legal trouble.

Copyright Laws can be very complicated as they have had a very dynamic history in both the U.S. and abroad. The copyright laws that are applied to a work can change radically depending on what year the work was first published and what country the work was published in.

Copyright laws differ all over the world so a thorough understanding of how copyright works where you live is essential (and the country where you plan on selling material based on a Public Domain work).

There are an estimated 85 MILLION books in the Public Domain. This copyright-free content can be used in any manner you see fit – content for websites, blog, web 2.0 properties, ebooks, print books – literally anything you can imagine!

There’s a lot more than just books waiting for you in the Public Domain as well – magazines, newspapers, comic books, movies, music, paintings, photographs – all kinds of things.

And the best part of it is that it’s all sitting there waiting for you to take your share. It’s your legal right as a citizen of the world to reuse the stuff in your own product creations. That’s what the Public Domain was intended to be – a base of intellectual material that other’s could reuse and expand upon thus adding to the infinite pool of human knowledge and in doing so, ensuring that this material gets shared and passed on to future generations.

So what are you waiting for? The Public Domain belongs to you every bit as much as it belongs to me. Start dipping into the vast ocean of Public Domain material that’s available to you today and you’ll never be short on quality content for your info products again – guaranteed!

l

About the Author:

Logan Andrew is an online entrepreneur, information publisher, and author that has been using Public Domain material to create profitable products and businesses since 2001. He is also co-author of "The Public Domain Treasure Hunter's Survival Kit" available here. For more info Logan, click here.