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Copyright and Fair Use

An overview of copyright, focusing on your rights as a copyright owner and use of other people's works in academic contexts

Public Domain: No Restrictions!

Good news!  Not everything is protected by copyright.  There are vast collections of content that have no restrictions on use.  If something is in the public domain, you can copy it, publish it, remix it, etc., etc. Below are the main public domain categories.

U.S. federal government works.  The federal government dedicates its content to the public domain.  This includes works by agencies or government employees in the course of their duties.

In the U.S., works published in 1929 entered the public domain on January 1, 2025, under the 95-year copyright term rule. 

  • Books, films, music, works of art, motion pictures, and other works first published in 1929 and before are now free to use, share, remix, and adapt without needing permission or paying royalties.

  • This includes famous works like Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.

A lot of things created between 1929 and 1989. Unfortunately, determining copyright for works published between 1929 and 1989 is difficult. See the box below, Determining Public Domain Status, for more information.  You can assume works made since 1989 are copyrighted (with a few exceptions, like Creative Commons materials).

Determining Public Domain Status

The table below, borrowed from Stanford's helpful and thorough fair use and copyright guide, provides general guidelines for when works are likely to enter the public domain.

Table for Determining Public Domain Status by Rich Stim/Stanford. Used under CC BY-NC.
Works published in the US before 1929 In the public domain.
Works published in the US from 1929 to 1963

If renewed: Still under copyright for a total of 95 years.

If not renewed by the 28th year: In the public domain.
Generally, if a work was published after 1928 but before March 1, 1989 Generally, if a work was published without copyright notice under the authorization of the copyright owner and the law does not provide an exception for the omission, the work is in the public domain.

For a more detailed version, see the Cornell Copyright Term chart, below.

How do you know if a work was published with notice or if copyright was renewed? Below are some resources to help you.  It's not always easy or possible to determine this.