Because there is no concept of public domain in Japan's copyright law, even though the materials are claimed public domain, there can be some restrictions such as about commercial use, which has a conflict with GFDL.
Unlike the United States many other countries' central-government-generated content is not in the public domain. Most English speaking commonwealth countries exert Crown copyright. Indian government sites also seem to be copyrighted by default. [1] Please make certain that in any particular jurisdiction government agencies will allow you to copy materials without permission.
U.S. copyright expiry flowchart
The U.S. law firm of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP provide a flow chart (with footnotes) which describes the criteria for when a work enters the public domain in the United States.
Please don't data dump!
The resources below are valuable, but many are very old, context-dependent, written from biased points of view, and otherwise are not in themselves good encyclopedia articles. They contain some useful information, but also sometimes an antiquated writing style and innumerable errors of fact.
So please, if you copy material from these sources, make sure you take some time to verify the accuracy of the information: edit, update, introduce, or otherwise produce a good article out of it rather than just dumping it here verbatim. But if you can't do that, put it in anyway because somebody else will come by and tweak it. Wikipedia articles are living texts, because everybody has the power to edit them. An entry that starts out incorrect, as a stub or even as something very insane, will eventually be tweaked and evolve into something much more sophisticated.
Please include an appropriate template for the reference in article
Please use a template for the reference in an article that you create (or modify), if it exists. For example, if you include {{CIA WFB 2000}}, it expands into:
This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook (2000 edition) which, as a US government publication, is in the public domain.
A list of templates for sources (including public domain sources) can be found at: Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles (note this may include templates for non-public domain sources).
Encyclopedic or general resources
US Government
Title 17 USC §105, Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works, provides that "Copyright protection is not available for any work of the United States Government," defined in Title 17 USC §101, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." Therefore, only those works solely authored by US Federal Government employees are not protected by copyright in the United States.
Works produced by contractors and grantees for the federal government are generally protected by copyright. In such cases, the Government is granted a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license in the work to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, and to allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The Government’s license does not place these works in the public domain. Additionally, a copyrighted work for which the copyright has been transferred to the Government by assignment or bequest is not in the public domain.
Look for copyright and permissions notices on U.S. Federal Government publications and websites. However be cautioned that government agencies often advise that in the absence of a copyright notice, users may assume their information is not copyrighted. This contradicts the copyright law as amended in 1989, when the United States joined the Berne Convention for the purpose of harmonizing domestic copyright law with international copyright standards. While use of a copyright notice and registration was once required as a condition of copyright protection in the United States, it is now optional, and a work is not in the public domain simply because it does not have a copyright notice.
For further discussion, see: DON’T KEEP THE PUBLIC GUESSING: BEST PRACTICES IN NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT AND TERMS & CONDITIONS OF USE FOR GOVERNMENT WEB SITE CONTENT (2004) by the CENDI Copyright & Intellectual Property Working Group. http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-4website_policy.html
Canadian Government
While the Canadian government claims Crown copyright there are images archives at the National Library of Canada that are in the public domain. They include:
The European Library is a service of the Conference of European Librarians. It is a portal offering multilingual federated searching across and within the collections of the national libraries of Europe. It will be the starting point organisationally and technically for a European digital library encompasses museums, archives and other holders of digitised and digital cultural heritage material.
The European Library website (This site can only be accessed with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Mozilla/Netscape)
Public Domain Comedy Heaven A growing collection of free to download public domain video comedy. Including Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton.
Public Domain Books: Online Visitors to this website can read and download 13,000+ Public Domain books, all for free.
Project Gutenberg See in particular The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia (although only Vol 1 of this seems to be available). Note that not all of the Project Gutenberg texts are fully in the public domain. Read the license of the respective texts carefully. "The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia is a reproduction of a 1911 edition of a famous encyclopedia."
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia, generally short entries, mostly about people and places; probably the only encyclopedia that does have entries about characters from Dickens' works, but not about fruit.
This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently entered the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations. This online version contains the unedited contents of the original encyclopedia. Since the original work was completed almost 100 years ago, it does not cover a significant portion of modern Jewish History (e.g., the creation of Israel, the Holocaust, etc.). However, it does contain an incredible amount of information that is remarkably relevant today.
We are considering inviting the Internet community to help us update the encyclopedia -- if you are interested in volunteering (as a writer, editor, etc.) please join our Mailing List. By putting this important work on the Internet, we hope to improve the quality of Jewish information available online -- and stimulate new discussion. Therefore, we have "Discussion Forums" and "Internet Links" sections which allow our visitors to converse and identify related websites.
ibiblio.org is a major repository of information: "the public's library and digital archive". All collections on ibiblio are assumed to be in the public domain unless otherwise noted. Check for copyright notices on any material you wish to use.
A Pronouncing dictionary of Biography and Mythology contains a large number (10000+) short NPOV biographical entries, many of which could be copied and pasted to form stubs (due to its focus it contains information on many 19th and 18th century figures not yet covered in Wikipedia).
Classictexts.net: Hyperlinked and searchable texts of 1600 ancient and modern public domain books on CD. Derived from Folio Corp. e-texts with transcription and publication dates going back to the early 1990s.
(Aveiro University) DiseaseCard.org"DiseaseCard is an information retrieval tool for accessing and integrating genetic and medical information for health applications."
(US Federal Govt.) US Forest Service Fire Effects Database Database of current information on a wide variety of tree, shrub, grass, mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian species found largely in North America -- great reference material
(US Federal Govt.) National Center for Biotechnology Information, unless otherwise specified (for example the text of most of the books in the book section of the site is not in the public domain unless it is published by NIH or the NCBI) the material on this site is in the public domain (the NCBI asks you to cite NCBI as the source if you use it, see copyright and disclaimer information), of particular relevance for wikipedia (as a source for text and images) are
Some parts may be non-public domain -- can anyone check this in detail with the webmasters, please?
According to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/copyright.html, specific NLM Web sites containing protected information provide additional notification of conditions associated with its use. It's in PD by default.
(US Federal Govt.) USGS Mineral Resources Program - "The Mineral Resources Program provides and communicates current, impartial information on the occurrence, quality, quantity, and availability of mineral resources."
(US Federal Govt.) [3] - Library of Congress area country studies. It explicitly states that it is not copyrighted
(US Federal Govt.) CIA World DataBank II - global outline map data (coastlines, rivers, national boundaries) in vector format, hosted by Dave Pape at the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (but note that this dates back to 1972, so many national boundaries are out of date) Now (mostly?, entirely?) obsoleted by VMAP0, see below.
(U.S. Federal Govt.) VMAP0, a vector map of the world, an updated version of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) Digital Chart of the World. See also the article VMAP0. [Note: the original NIMA data package distributes the public domain dataset with a small amount of copyrighted information provided as overlays: these should be filtered out if you are going to use this as a public domain resource]
(US Federal Govt.) ETOPO2 - a whole-planet digital elevation model dataset with sample points a 2 arc minute intervals
(US Federal Govt.) the USGSGeographic Names Information System claims to have almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features within the United States
DEMIS World Map Server generates maps using public domain data with no usage restrictions
[5] USGS National Map Viewer, configurable. includes topos.
America As It Was - a huge resource for vintage postcards in the U.S., organized by state. Any postcard first published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD. Lots of photos, aerial views, and maps of many U.S. locations.
Historical Maps of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas (public domain usage statement - "Courtesy of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin")
(US Federal Govt.) Biographical Directory of the United States Congress - biographical information on everyone who ever served in Congress, including a good number of presidents. Articles that use info from this source should use {{bioguide}} at the bottom, for a simple citation.
Classics in the History of Psychology is a collection of classic public domain works in psychology collected by Christopher D. Green: see here for a note about the copyright status of the individual documents in the collection
(US Federal Govt.) US Energy Information Agency - statistics and info on energy industry (mostly US but some stuff for the world) - they appreciate but do not require acknowledgement (copyright info here)
Communication
(US Federal Govt.) Federal Standard 1037C, a telecommunicationsglossary, appears to be mostly in the public domain based on these principles, and is a source of a large number of bits of useful material. A few items are derived from copyrighted sources: where this is the case, there is an attribution to the source. Note: most non-trivial 1037C articles are now incorporated into Wikipedia -- please also note that only those articles that have substantial content and are from 100% public domain sources are suitable for inclusion in the Wikipedia
(US Federal Govt.) DISA site about commercial telecommunications standards From the site: "This site is maintained by the Commercial Standards Division of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to provide information about the current status of commercial telecommunications standards."
Public domain lecture notes: "Introduction to Computer Science", "Data Structures" and "Analysis of Algorithms"
The Jargon File Eric S. Raymond's definitive work on geek-speak
Education
ERIC Digests This site has several thousand education articles. They were all produced by the US Government ERIC Clearinghouse system. All of them are also in the public domain and can be used freely for content at Wikipedia.
From the World-wide Information System for Renewable Energy (WIRE), which is a service provided by the International Solar Energy Society (ISES - http://www.ises.org/ ).
(Aveiro University) DiseaseCard.org"DiseaseCard is an information retrieval tool for accessing and integrating genetic and medical information for health applications."
(US Federal Govt.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "In general all information presented in these pages and all items available for download are for public use. However, you may encounter some pages that require a login password and id. If this is the case you may assume that information presented and items available for download therein are for your authorized access only and not for redistribution by you unless you are otherwise informed."
(US Federal Govt.) MedlinePlus at the NIH copyright terms here indicating materials are in the public domain unless otherwise indicated
(US Federal Govt.) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) "The public may reproduce without permission information from the National Institute of Mental Health Web site, except for documents that state another copyright policy applies to them."
(US Federal Govt.) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "Unless otherwise noted, the contents of the FDA Website (www.fda.gov)--both text and graphics--are not copyrighted. They are in the public domain and may be republished, reprinted and otherwise used freely by anyone without the need to obtain permission from FDA. Credit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the source is appreciated but not required."
(US Federal Govt.) USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory Contains nutritional information on a large number of comestibles. From FAQ: "USDA food composition data is in the public domain and there is no copyright. We would appreciate it if you would list us as the source of the data and when possible we would like to see the product which uses the data or be notified of its use."
(US Federal Govt.) Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (needs positive confirmation before use: some diagrams within the text say "used by permission", which implies that they are copyrighted -- however, the rest appears to be written by U.S. govt. employees)
(US Federal Govt.) The NCI thesaurus is a massive public domain repository of definitions of medical terms
(US Federal Govt.) The Genetics Home Reference http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ghr/ is a wide resource on human genetics
(US Federal Govt.) The NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms defines a large number of medical terms, mostly related to cancer.
Military
(US Federal Govt.) U.S. Department of Defense - All of these files are in the public domain unless otherwise indicated. However, it is requested to credit the photographer/videographer as indicated or simply "Department of Defense."
(US Army Space & Missile Defense Command) [6], launch site information, space launch company information, environmentl and technical information on launch sites.
Public affairs
(US Federal Govt.) Federal Emergency Management Agency: Not sure how much of this is useful, but anyway it's under the same terms as the U.S. Department of State site: all in the public domain unless it carries an explicit copyright notice.
(US Federal Govt.) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: copyright notice here, typical U.S. gov't terms. Does have some good information for people patient enough to find it.
(US Federal Govt.) Voice Of America - All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America is public domain. However, some images and graphics are licensed for use and covered by all applicable copyright laws.
OVO New works in the public domain since 1987. Magazine format (PDF and OpenOffice.org formats).
Brewer's Reader's Handbook, published in 1898, states that "the object of this Handbook is to supply readers and speakers with a lucid but very brief account of such names as are used in allusions and references, whether by poets or prose writers". Contains many short articles, some on obscure topics. None of its articles cite their references.
Internet Sacred Text Archive Online archive containing numerous etexts of books in the public domain (in the US) on religion, mythology, folklore and related topics. Copyright status of the source edition (copytext) of each work is analyzed and relevant bibliographic data, including images of title pages and versos, provided.
Biblioteca Elettronica Esoterica Esonet.org A comphrensive resource of free esoteric ebooks, articles, electronic papers about esoterism, religions, mythologies. The site is in italian but are present ebooks also in spanish, french, deutch etc.
Christianity
Biblical dictionaries: Some late nineteenth century Biblical dictionaries; these might need work to render unbiased and up-to-date.
Hitchcock's Bible Dictionary's list of Biblical names has been used as a source for the List of Biblical names
Smith's Bible Dictionary is another 19th century Bible dictionary, with much useful but dated text, also available in print from Thomas Nelson (Public Domain)
Catholic Public Domain Version A new translation of the Latin Vulgate in progress, using the Douay Rheims as a guide; site also contains several other public domain versions.
Rapture Ready Founder says information from his site can be distributed in any way whatsoever.
Infoanarchy: a weblog dedicated to copyright issues. All original material is in the public domain, although some redistributed articles may be under copyright.
"Ethical treatment for all youth" a website that documents therapy and detention of children and juveniles for consensual sexual activity. Author wrote to me in a personal email: "Certainly, I intend everything at my site to be in the public domain, to be used freely by anyone else. Of course, I would appreciate it if people who use it would link to my site, since I can use all the exposure I can get."
To be filed
please file these resources under the appropriate topic headings above
There are no more entries to be filed at the moment
Sources for finding public domain resources
Here are some web searches which may prove useful in the discovery of U.S. Federal Government and other public domain documents. Please note that you must still manually verify that documents are in the public domain. Please note also that not all sites in the .gov domain are U.S. federal government sites: some may be U.S. state or other local government sites.
The Creative Commons initiative may become a valuable new resource for Wikipedia authors. The project provides a "wizard" for licensing information under various open content licenses (including the public domain, which is not a license), and also features a directory of these works. (See also Creative Commons License)
