Some Information About Public Domain

I am not an attorney, lawyer or any other legal professional.
I do not, will not, can not, and am not offering any legal advice.
This site does not give any legal advice.
You are responsible for all legal obligations and consequences
if you choose to use any images on this blog site.

**Important**
There are different Public Domain licenses as well as a
"Public Domain Mark" that is not a license but is appears to be used by museums etc. when they believe a work is in the Public Domain (basically, it means they believe that there are no known copyrights).

Public Domain can include any of the designations below:

Creative Domain Mark
https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/pdm

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/PDM_FAQ 

CC0
Creative Commons Zero
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Public Domain may also be sited as: 

CC0 Mark 1.0
CC1.0
& Creative Commons Mark 1.0

Creative Commons Org.
is the Organization that is considered (by most of the world) to be
"The Resource" for information pertaining to Public Domain licenses.

Below are links to Creative Commons Org.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Other forms of Public Domain you will find are:

CC BY
Creative Commons Attribution or Share Alike

CC BY
CC BY-SA
CC BY-ND
CC BY-NC
CC BY-NC-ND

The best explanation I have found for each of these is from Creative Commons Org.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
(About half way down it shows each "CC-BY" license icon and explains it)

*Please note:*
Although a work of art may considered to be in the public domain in the USA;

Some countries do not consider the photograph
of the work of art
to be in the public domain.

How else do we see artwork on the internet other than
photographs of artwork?

It can all get very frustrating and confusing when it comes to what can be sold,
or even used in various countries.
This the major reason why I try to stay with images from museums that state that
they believe something is in the public domain.

WHY is that important?
Because the museum is probably the entity that photographed the thing!

If the museum states something is believed to be in the public domain
- then at least we know that the museum itself is not claiming copyright laws on the photograph they took!

Some Information about using photographs of artwork
(Listed by Country) can be found here
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_photographs

There may be laws that prevent or restrict the reuse of photographs of artwork in countries other than the U.S. Any use of photos found on "The World Is My Path" is at your own risk, and you should consider securing legal advice in your jurisdiction (or anywhere you want to use something or sell it ) before using any content.

Please check out the link above. It lists each country.
Take note of what countries have "Inconclusive", "Not OK" , or show a red "X" next to them.
The link above is a good place to start and can save your butt if you plan to use or sale something outside the U.S.A. that is made from a photograph of artwork where the photographer did not specifically release that photograph of the artwork. 

Disclaimer:

I am not an attorney, lawyer or any other legal professional.
I do not, will not, can not, and am not offering any legal advice. This site does not give any legal advice.
You are responsible for all legal obligations and consequences
if you choose to use any images on this blog.