Using Public Domain Stuff

Looking for good content for your web site but don't have the time or ability to do it yourself? Want some great graphics but have no budget? Or perhaps you are doing a research paper on the web for school and need to spice it up with some quotes, pictures or even full texts?

How about checking out works which are in the public domain? What is the public domain? These are images, films, sound clips, literature and pictures (and lots of other things) which are owned by the public as a whole. In other words, you may use them as you wish for your own purposes without the need to get permission, site references or pay anyone a dime!

You see, copyright is intended to only last for the lifetime of an author and perhaps his heirs. After that, a work is released into the public domain. In general, anything created before 1923 is available for you to use as you see fit. Things created between 1924 ad 1963 will be in the public domain unless the copyright holder renewed the copyright. 

So what does this mean to you? There is an incredible amount of material available to each and every one of us, just waiting to be used for no cost. For example, the Sears and J.C. Penny catalog that your grandmother saved from the last century - that is in the public domain. You could scan the images and use them on your web site if you want.

Gray's Anatomy, the works of William Shakespeare, Bulfinch's Mythology, and even the Webster's dictionary from a hundred years ago are all available free. You could even grab the text from a hundred year old copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica and use it as you please - it's public domain.

In addition, just about anything created by the government itself (The United States government) is available to the public to use as they see fit. Why? Because you already paid for it all with your taxes. So it you want to create a website about the military, you could head over the the U.S. Army web site and grab some pictures (being sure they are not copyrighted by individuals). If you wanted to include the text of a bill or law on your site, you can feel free to grab it from your favorite government web site. And, of course, all of the images taken by NASA belong to each and every one of us - take advantage of them and put your taxes to work for a change.

So what can you do with all of this vast amount of material? Create content for your web site! Publish fantastic ebooks or make collections of texts to give or sell to others. Yes, you can repackage and sell public domain material as you see fit. In fact, you can do anything that you want with it - post it, scan it, rewrite it, modify it - whatever your heart desires. All you need to be sure of is that the work is indeed in the public domain.

Some sites which provide collections of public domain works are listed below.

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