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Copyright for Extension Faculty and Staff: Public Domain
& Creative Commons

Public Domain

Materials in the public domain are not protected by copyright and may be freely used in their entirety.

Most federal government publications are in the public domain. Works created prior to 1923 are in the public domain. Works created between 1924 and 1989 may be in the public domain, depending on whether they were registered (when this was still required) and whether their original copyright term was renewed when it expired.  

To see when copyright term expires, check:

To see if copyright was renewed or if a specific work passed into the public domain, check:

  • The Copyright Office database of copyright registrations back to 1978.
    (For registrations prior to 1978, the Copyright Office can do a manual search for a fee.)
  • Copyright Renewal Database (Stanford University) This database covers copyright "renewal records received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1992 for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963. Note that the database includes ONLY US Class A (book) renewals."
  • Information about the Catalog of Copyright Entries (University of Pennsylvania) A chronological list of links to online records of copyright registrations and renewals, 1906 to the present.
  • Selected Copyright Renewal Registrations, 1950-1977 (Project Gutenberg)

A work can also be an "orphan work" meaning that it may still be under copyright, yet no rightsholder can be found.

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons provides a free licensing mechanism that allows creators to proactively grant permission for defined uses of their materials. Search the Commons to find "content you can share, use, and remix", in accordance with the licenses provided:

Attribution BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Attribution-Share-Alike BY-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-No-Derivs BY-ND
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial BY-NC
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike BY-NC-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Disclaimer

Nothing on this guide is to be construed as legal advice. These pages are intended to provide information and guidance in the application of copyright law and to expand on the University of Missouri System Collected Rules and Regulations.

Thanks to Miller Nichols Library of UMKC for permission to reuse material from their Copyright guide.