Public Domain
From Steem Center
Creative materials referred to as “public domain” are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission. Public domain works are freely available to the public as a whole and no one can ever own them.
A creative work becomes a public domain work if exclusive intellectual property rights to it have expired, have been forfeited, have been expressly waived, or are inapplicable.
Sometimes a work may be considered “in the public domain” of one jurisdiction, but not in another.
See also:
Links:
- Internet Archive: a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
- Project Gutenberg: a free ebooks library
- Wikipedia article about public domain