Public domain
August 24, 2009
Intellectual Property News and Interesting Facts
The public domain is a range of abstract materials—commonly referred to as intellectual property—which are not owned or controlled by anyone. The term indicates that these materials are therefore “public property”, and available for anyone to use for any purpose. The public domain can be defined in contrast to several forms of intellectual property; the public domain in contrast to copyrighted works is different from the public domain in contrast to trademarks or patented works. Furthermore, the laws of various countries define the scope of the public domain differently, making it necessary to specify which jurisdiction’s public domain is being discussed.
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One Response to “Public domain”
Having read the above, and especially the lst sentence, would it be correct to say that if a work e.g. book, is in the public domain (in say USA), it could still be copyright protected in terms of another countries copyright laws (e.g. SA)? If so, this seems anomalous, as that would mean the SA law gives the author of such a book more rights than has retained in terms of his own (national) law; (in this case the USA).
By Leo de Jager on Oct 6, 2009