The dissemination of works in the public domain contributes to education.
Public domain is a concept that refers to the set of intellectual works that are not protected by copyright and that, in this way, can be used by all people without having to request authorization or pay for said use. The period in which copyright protection ends and the public domain begins varies according to each legislation.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works , signed in 1886 and revised and updated on several occasions, establishes that all intellectual works are protected by copyright . Once the person responsible for that creation has died, the years begin to count until the copyright expires and the work passes into the public domain.
The Berne Convention indicates that copyright extends 50 years from the death of the creator, although it allows signatories – more than 170 countries – to extend it. Thus, the public domain can be established up to a century after death.
Public domain origin
The origin of the public domain as a legal institution would be found in France . If we take the case of Spain , for example, in 1847 it was already mentioned in the Literary Property Law .
This rule stated that, given the expiration of the right granted to writers, editors and their heirs , literary works entered the public domain. It was understood that, under this orbit, the good ceased to belong to someone in particular, and thus began to belong to the entire community in general .
The existence of the public domain is usually justified by the inspiration and knowledge that works developed throughout history provide to the creators of the present. Upon expiration of the legal mechanism that safeguards the rights of authors , the ideas that are embodied in a medium are integrated into an open access collection and the cultural heritage of humanity.
Many classic works of literature are in the public domain.
Payment obligation
Although it is understood that the public domain implies the existence of common goods available to the community as a kind of cultural heritage , the legislation of some countries restricts access to said works by requiring payment for their use.
Argentina 's copyright and intellectual protection laws are a reflection of what is often called the paying public domain . In this South American country, anyone who intends to use a work by a creator who died more than 70 years ago has the obligation to make a declaration to the National Fund for the Arts (FNA) and pay the corresponding fee.
This provision covers books, music , movies , photographs, sculptures, paintings, maps and plans, for example. The money raised by the FNA by taxing the public domain returns, in theory, to contemporary artists through loans, subsidies, scholarships and other benefits.
The creations of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are part of the public domain.
The public domain and anonymous or orphan works
The existence of the public domain is associated with the legal protection of creators' rights: when those rights expire, the creation is released, as is the case with ancient books . However, sometimes the public domain arises or is decreed due to other circumstances.
An anonymous work is part of the public domain since there is no data about its author. In other words: since its author is unknown, neither the economic rights nor the moral rights of the work can be attributed to anyone. For this reason, the exploitation of labor is free.
«Sing of my Cid», «The life of Lazarillo de Tormes» y"Beowulf" son ejemplos de obras anónimas y, por lo tanto, pertenecientes al dominio público. Por eso pueden leerse libremente en bibliotecas digitales sin caer en la piracy y eventualmente ser escenificadas sin pagar.
The same regime applies to orphan works . In this case, the copyright owner is considered untraceable. Unlike what happens with anonymous works, it is possible that the name of the creator is known but not their contact information.
Examples of works available to society
It is possible to mention multiple examples of works available to society since they belong to the public domain. The compositions of great classical music authors such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven or Johann Sebastian Bach .
This means that Mozart 's operas, Beethoven 's symphonies and Bach 's sonatas can be performed, reproduced and adapted without the need to request authorization or pay.
The works of William Shakespeare are also part of the public domain. It is important to clarify that this always applies to the original texts, although translations could be left out of consideration. Tragedies like "Romeo and Juliet" , "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" ; comedies like “The Merchant of Venice” and “Much Ado About Nothing”; and dramas such as "Henry IV" and "Richard III" , which arose from the creativity of the English poet, are in the public domain.
An enormous amount of public domain works can be found in the vast Internet archive. Platforms such as Europeana (promoted by the European Union ), Open Library , Project Gutenberg , Google Books and Wikipedia 's Wikimedia Commons (which also includes content with free licenses) allow access to this type of creations thanks to technology.