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Creative Commons > Share your work > Public domain > Public Domain Mark Recent Posts
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Public Domain Mark to Departing General Counsel

Diane Peters
 Announcing Our New Strategy:
"No Known Copyright"
What’s Next for CC
 The Improved CC Search
Our Public Domain Mark enables works that are no longer restricted by copyright to
be marked as such in a standard and simple way, making them easily discoverable
and available to others. Many cultural heritage institutions including museums, libraries and other
In this section
curators are knowledgeable about the copyright status of paintings, books and manuscripts,
photographs and other works in their collections, many of which are old and no longer under  CC Licenses and Examples
copyright.  The Public Domain Mark operates as a tag or a label, allowing institutions like those as  Licensing considerations
well as others with such knowledge to communicate that a work is no longer restricted by copyright  Public domain
and can be freely used by others.  The mark
We'dcan also
love be anfrom
to hear important
you! source of information,  CC0
Creative Commons
  
Search the website
Public Domain Mark
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allowing others to verify a work’s copyright status and learn more about the work.
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site
PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042  Understanding Free Cultural
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
info@creativecommons.org 4.0 International license. Icons by The Noun Works

Recommended Uses of the Public

1-415-429-6753 Project.
Contact Privacy Policies Terms Frequently Asked Questions  Places to share

Domain Mark
The Public Domain Mark is recommended for works that are free of known copyright around the
world. These will typically be very old works.  It is not recommended for use with works that are in
the public domain in some jurisdictions if they also known to be restricted by copyright in others.

A work may have limited or “hybrid” public domain status for several reasons.  Some jurisdictions
have unusually long copyright terms, which may mean that a work free from copyright restrictions
most everywhere in the world could still be protected by the copyright laws of that particular
country.  Sometimes a work is no longer restricted by copyright in a jurisdiction because the author
or owner failed to comply with local formalities such as renewal, where those formalities apply.  It
could also be the case for works that are deemed not protected by copyright by operation of law in
a particular jurisdiction, but that are afforded protection under the copyright laws of other
jurisdictions.

CC does not recommend the Public Domain Mark for works with limited, hybrid public domain
status at this time, though we will be exploring means for doing so in 2014.

Learn more about the Public Domain Mark

Use the Public Domain Mark to label public domain works

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