Wikipedia:Public domain resources - Wikipedia (original) (raw)

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There are many resources on the World Wide Web that are in the public domain (see Wikipedia:Public domain), and therefore are freely usable on Wikipedia and its sister projects without legal restrictions. Note, however, that wherever public domain resources are used on Wikipedia they should be properly attributed, just like any other source (see Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Plagiarism).

This page is intended as a helpful guide to public-domain resources.

Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook. CIA.

See Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles (note that this lists templates for both public domain and non-public domain sources) and attribution templates. Attribution templates are extremely helpful to other editors; it allows them to easily locate articles that use a particular public domain source, by using the "What links here" feature on the template page.

Note: the images on bioguide may or may not be PD. Their copyright notice is at [1].

Ancient History

National Park Service Heritage Documentation Program {{PD-USGov-Interior-NPS}}

Library of Congress

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 US 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 US 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 necessarily 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 term & conditions of use for government web site content (2004) by the CENDI Copyright & Intellectual Property Working Group.

Works of the United States federal government:

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/ ).

Geology and Earth science

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Biology and zoology

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Christianity

Hindu

Jewish

Islam

Occult

  1. ^ "Philipine Government] (Republic of the Philippines)". www.gov.ph. Retrieved 5 July 2015.