Public Domain

Public domain

Public domain is work such as video, music and images that is not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright.

The copyright act of 1909 originally stated that all work was granted protection for 28 years with the option to extend for another 28 years after that period the work would enter the public domain.

Some ways that work can enter the public domain are;

The work is not considered copyrightable by law.

The works have been given to public domain by the author.

The copyright of the work has expired.

All works published in the united states before 1923 are considered public domain, due to the ‘Sonny Bono Copyright Term’ as well as Disney’s mascot Mickey Mouse, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon was published in 1928 and was due to become public domain in 1984 however Disney lobbied to extend the copyright law to a term of 75 years so that the copyright would expire in 2003. However, Disney in the late 90’s again lobbied for extending copyright in which in 1998 the ‘Sonny Bono Act’ was put into effect extending all copyrighted work by 20 years.