What is the public domain?

The “public domain” includes all works which are not protected by any intellectual property rights. Such information is not owned by anybody, so everyone can use or copy it however they like.

The public domain includes information that has never been protected by an intellectual property rights. For example, a work of authorship which is not original or which has not been fixed in a tangible medium is not entitled to copyright protection and therefore falls within the public domain.

In addition, information that was protected by a copyright at one time, but which is no longer so protected, is also within the public domain. For example, once a copyright on a book expires, anyone can copy that book or use parts of it in their own work without seeking the original author’s permission.