Public domain
Public domain (PDM/CC0) is one of the free licenses, clearly described by Creative Commons.
Strictly speaking PDM is not a license, but the expiration of a copyright.
General rules
[edit]Public domain can be the result of either:
- 70 years after the death of the "last" author (PDM)
- autonomous decision by the author (CC0)
- generic decision by the government (USA, or other)
National exceptions can be valid (extended rights in France for war victims, or their heirs).
Other licenses
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You can find an interesting brochure here about the rules of free knowledge.Restricted CC BY licenses:
- CC BY-NC, non-commercial
- CC BY-ND, non-derivative
- CC BY-NC-ND, non-commercial non-derivative
Restricted CC BY-SA licenses:
- CC BY-NC-SA, share-alike non-commercial
Combinations
[edit]Combinations can be made, i.e. the base text in CC BY-SA, the publication under classic copyright as with the book Schrijven voor Wikipedia.
Wikimedia platforms
[edit]Wikimedia Commons is hosted on (primary) servers in the USA and multiple replication servers spread across all continents.
This is not relevant to copyright. The use of public domain images is governed by national legislation, with the Berne Convention (“70 years after the death of the creator”) playing a key role.
Wikimedia Belgium has little authority over copyright as such, but we do monitor this closely.