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.
- The
Wikimedia Foundation is based in the
United States and accordingly governed by
United States copyright law, which tends to be broad. Still, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations. (See
Wikipedia:Copyrights,
Wikipedia:Non-US copyrights, and
Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country).
- Most works prepared by an officer or employee of the US government as part of that person's official duties (see
Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States) are public domain, but that is not true of most works prepared by
state government officers or employees, or to foreign governments. For example, in many countries that are part of the
Commonwealth of Nations,
Crown copyright is standard.
- The United States
intellectual property
law firm of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP (now Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP) created a
flow chart in 2002 which is helpful in determining whether a given work is in the public domain in the United States. The flowchart is from 2002 and so reflects the state of the law in that year.
- Please don't data dump! The resources below are valuable, but many are also old (with antiquated style and sometimes factual errors), dependent on context, sometimes written from biased points of view, and otherwise are not in themselves good
encyclopedia articles. If you copy material from these sources, please do not simply dump it verbatim – instead, take the time to verify the accuracy of the information (by checking more recent scholarly work);
properly attribute the material; format and wikify the material (see
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout).
- The minimum that an editor must do is to tag any public domain sources dumped into the wiki with an attribution template. For example, if you include {{
CIA World Factbook}}, it expands into:
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.
-
Physics for Free has two public domain physics books by former Yale professor Frank Firk: one about basic physics, one about groups and particles
- Note: the images on bioguide may or may not be PD. Their copyright notice is at
[1].
Ancient History
-
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
National Park Service
Heritage Documentation Program {{
PD-USGov-Interior-NPS}}
Library of Congress
- (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)
- (US Federal Govt.)
Federal Standard 1037C, a
telecommunications
glossary, 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."
-
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.
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:
-
United States Census Bureau –
United States Bureau of the Census has an enormous range of facts and figures of
Census data, often useful when fleshing out articles about cities and states
-
CIA World Factbook –
The World Factbook from the
Central Intelligence Agency contains basic facts on all the countries of the world; however, the most recent data for some statistics may be up to several decades out of date.
-
Background Notes from the
United States Department of State include "facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of
independent states, some
dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty."
State.gov copyright statement: "Unless a copyright is indicated, information on State Department websites is in the public domain and may be copied and distributed without permission. Citation of the U.S. State Department as source of the information is appreciated."
-
Library of Congress Country Studies – Web version of the
Library of Congress Country Studies, a series of works published from 1988 to 1998 by the
Library of Congress's
Federal Research Division. The Country Studies/Area Handbook Program was sponsored by the
Department of the Army and at present includes 101 countries and regions. The
copyright statement: "Information contained in the online Country Studies is not copyrighted and thus is available for free and unrestricted use by researchers. As a courtesy, however, appropriate credit should be given to the series."
-
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.
-
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]
-
ETOPO2 – a whole-planet
digital elevation model dataset with sample points a 2 arc minute intervals
-
GTOPO30 – a whole-planet
digital elevation model dataset with sample points at 30 arc second intervals – the data files can be found at
https://web.archive.org/web/20111017031724/http://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/gtopo30/global/
-
Blue Marble, a set of high-resolution cylindrical-projection raster images of the Earth derived from satellite data
-
GEOnet Names Server –
GEOnet Names Server (GNS) provides access to the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and
United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) database of geographic feature names and locations for locations outside the United States. The database is the official repository of foreign place-name decisions approved by the BGN.
-
DEMIS World Map Server generates maps using public domain data with no usage restrictions
-
The National Map –
The National Map (TNP), managed by the
United States Geological Survey's National Geospatial Program (NGP).
-
United States Geological Survey
Geographic Names Information System claims to have almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features within the United States
-
National Archives and Records Administration – The official archive site of the
federal government of the United States. This is a
work of the US government.
-
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress – The
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress includes biographical information every individual who ever served in the
Continental Congress or
United States Congress. This is a
work of the US government. The proper template is
Template:Bioguide.
-
Occupational Outlook Handbook – The
Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the
United States Department of Labor's
Bureau of Labor Statistics, contains descriptions of a great many occupations
-
Uniformed services
-
Multimedia from the
United States Department of Defense, including thousands of news photos, photo essays, video clips, and other multimedia
-
Army Media –
United States Army images, audio, video and written content
-
Photo collection from the
United States Navy
-
Video collection from the
United States Navy
-
AFLink Art Archive from the
United States Air Force, including a searchable database of items such as Air Force posters, emblems and shields, historical records, cartoons and weapons]
-
Photos from the
United States Air Force
-
Searchable photo bank from the
United States Marine Corps
-
Visual Information Gallery from the
United States Coast Guard, including photos, graphics, video, audio, art, and leadership portraits
-
FEMA Photo Library from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
-
FEMA Multimedia including video and audio
-
EPA Newsroom records – Includes documents and multimedia
-
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.
-
Speeches and testimony of
National Transportation Safety Board board members and staff
-
Publications of the Headquarters, United States Army Corps of Engineers – Included are
United States Army Corps of Engineers records such as engineering manuals, pamphlets, design guides, and standards.
-
Publications Index of the
Bureau of Reclamation, including Hydraulic Laboratory Reports, research reports, and engineering manuals and monographs
-
Image search on
search.usa.gov
-
Federal Information Processing Standards home page
-
Department of Defense Single Stock Point for Military Specifications, Standards and Related Publications (DODSSP) – see also
United States Military Standard
-
NIST Data Gateway – Access to
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientific and technical data.
-
Catalog of US Government Publications – From the
US Government Printing Office
-
Sound from the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service;
copyright statement: "The following sound clips are public domain and may be used without prior permission. If possible, please credit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."
- 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/ ).
General resources
Chemistry
Climate
Geology and Earth science
Astronomy
Biology and zoology
- (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
Medicine
- (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.)
NIH public domain publications on urology
- (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.)
Glossary of HIV/AIDS-Related Terms 4th Edition: a Department of Health and Human Services project collaboratively sponsored by the National Institutes of Health,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- (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.)
A large collection of public domain information sheets on various neurological disorders
-
Gray's Anatomy – 1918 edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (with illustrations).
- (US Federal Govt.)
US National Toxicology Program: copyright notice
here, typical US government terms
-
Asthma genetics – Public domain data
- (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 US government 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.
- (US Federal Govt.) The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
[2] is a federal medical school. Some material is available on its website, but much is not. Contacting the public affairs department could enable a significant amount of material to be made available to the public.
Libraries
Literature
-
Project Gutenberg –
Project Gutenberg provides over 34,000 free public domain texts.
-
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.
- The 1911 version of the
Encyclopædia Britannica.
-
The Household Cyclopedia
-
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.
-
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.
-
Fully proofread Public Domain Books – Collections of books on finance, cooking, encyclopedias, etc. mostly public domain.
-
A Pronouncing dictionary of Biography and Mythology contains a large number (10000+) short
WP: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).
-
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
-
New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors – Aims to tracking all authors of books published before 1964, and some more recent authors, for determining copyright expiration
-
A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology (José Ángel García Landa, University of Zaragoza, Spain)
-
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.
-
LibriVox – free public domain audio books
Music
Religion
-
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 comprehensive 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, German, etc.
Christianity
Hindu
Jewish
Islam
Occult
-
Greg Goebel's IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN: Science, technology, military history, introductions to classical and relativistic physics.
-
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."
-
Freetems: Photos, music and other PD content, user-contributed and moderated or gathered from around the web.
-
Public domain vectors: Vector graphics in public domain.