Public+Domain+and+Creative+Commons

Public Domain and Creative Commons

//**Public Domain** is a range of intellectual property materials which are not owned or controlled by anyone.//

//**Creative Commons** provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."//

Three ways to identify if something is copyrighted or in the public domain are:
 * When a copyright expires, the work enters the public domain.
 * A creative work is said to be in the public domain if there are no laws which restrict its use by the public at large.
 * Works created before the existence of copyright and patent laws also form part of the public domain.

Source http://creativecommons. org/presskit

Benefits of using Creative Commons:
 * Creative Commons licenses follow the content, people know immediately the conditions under which its use is allowed, without having to track down copyright owners or fret about what to do if they cannot be found.
 * Knowing clearly and up front what is permissible, users can remix, copy, distribute, and repurpose content according to the copyright owner’s preferences.
 * It encourages others to quote more from your site, talk more about it and link more to your work than they might have otherwise.

Useful Websites:
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