What's In the Public Domain?
This is a transcript of a podcast posted March 20, 2006.
 We’re speaking with Attorney Stephen Fishman, an expert on copyright law and the author of The Public Domain: How to Find and Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art, and More (Nolo).
NOLO: Steve, there’s been a lot of interest in the public domain these days. Can you give us some famous examples of things that are in the public domain?
STEPHEN FISHMAN: Well, there’s a huge amount of material available. For example, the works of William Shakespeare are in the public domain; many, many famous songs: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” by Stephen Foster; the King James version of the Bible…
NOLO: So, the fact that these works are in the public domain… does that mean that anyone can copy them? What exactly does it mean if something is in the public domain?
STEPHEN FISHMAN: Yes, when something is in the public domain, it means that anybody can copy it or use it any other way without paying a permission fee to any copyright owner, because there is none. The work belongs to the public as a whole, and any member of the public can use it any way he or she desires.
NOLO: If a person has an idea, can that be in the public domain? Because, for example, the lawyer for Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, says, “Dan Brown is free to copy certain ideas, as long as he doesn’t copy the expression.”
STEPHEN FISHMAN: Well, his lawyer is quite right; he’s paying him probably 200 bucks an hour -- 200 pounds an hour -- I’m sure he’s worth every penny. What he means is that ideas, concepts, thoughts… they’re always in the public domain; no one can own an idea. It’s only when you express an idea, when you put it down on paper, you write it -- or if you have a musical idea, you play it, and you record it or write it down as sheet music… only what you express in a concrete form is protected, not the intangible idea itself. Thus, Dan Brown can take the idea of Jesus Christ's having a child with Mary Magdalene, and write a novel based on it, as long as he doesn’t copy the actual words from the books of these people who are suing him.
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