LibGuides: Copyright: Public Domain

What's in the Public Domain?

Public domain works are not restricted by copyright and do not require a license or fee to use.

Material has had:

Currently, the default term is life of the author plus 70 years.

All works published in the U.S. before 1923
All works published with a copyright notice from 1923 through 1963 without copyright renewal
All works published without a copyright notice from 1923 through 1977
All works published without a copyright notice from 1978 through March 1, 1989, and without subsequent registration within 5 years

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
Cornell University Library chart to copyright terms and public domain entry, as of January 2020.

Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Librivox for Audio Books
LibriVox audiobooks are free for anyone to listen to, on their computers, iPods or other mobile device, or to burn onto a CD.
Project Gutenberg for eBooks
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world's great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
Public Domain Images from the New York Times
A category of images from the "New York Times"' in the Public Domain in the United States of America — that were published prior to January 1, 1925
Smithsonian Institution for images
The photos are a sample of the more than 13 million images in some seven hundred collections in the museums, archives, and research centers. These collections contain photographs collected from outside sources in addition to those taken by Smithsonian staff, and represent a broad range of subjects and themes in the fields of art, history, culture, and science.