Graduate School of Arts & Sciences-Hawthorne Campus

Copyright is a set of laws designed to protect original works of authorship in a tangible form of expression. These laws offer copyright owners' protection over how their work is reused. For details, see this document from the U.S. Copyright office. Please see our Copyright guide.

Public domain refers to works whose intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, have been waived, or ar inapplicable.  For example, works of Shakespeare or Beethoven were created before copyright existed. Some works such as cooking recipes, instructions, standard calendars, measurements, and telephone books which contain no original authorship are not eligible for copyright protection.  Be sure and check carefully to determine that

Other Public Domain works:

• United States Government Documents
• Materials that have used a Creative Commons license instead of copyright, which gives you permission to share and use materials.  Just look for a symbol similar to this to see if a work is covered by Creative Commons. 
• Works with expired copyrights
• Other - Check Copyright Terms and the Public Domain Chart