Awesome Uncopyright

A curated list of works in the public domain.

Works in the public domain have no copyright restrictions. This can be the result of intellectual property rights expiring or being forfeited. In the case of the latter, authors have used the term uncopyright to describe their act of relinquishing copyright.

Contents

• Art
• Articles
• Blogs
• Books
• Essays
• Images
• Licenses
• Organizations
• Related
• Resources
• Software
• Talks
• License

Art

• #NEWPALMYRA - Reconstruction of the ancient Palmyra city in virtual space.
• BlendSwap: CC0 search - Quality CC0 3D models (not only) for Blender.
• David Reed Smith - Making tatting shuttles and drop spindles, and occasionally writing articles for fun.
• DesignerCandies - High quality graphic design resources for use in design projects.
• dotcolon - CC0 fonts.
• Every Shirt Is Political - Shirts that are ethically made, hand-printed, and pay what you can priced.
• FreeMusicArchive: CC0 search - Many CC0 songs.
• Freesound: CC0 search - Thousands of CC0 sound effects and recordings.
• Gwenn Seemel - French-American artist, painter, portraitist.
• HDRI Haven - High-resolution HDR panoramas under CC0.
• Kenney - High-quality game art under CC0.
• Michael Beil - Supporting the web. Developing. Playing music.
• Martin Vorel - Photographer releasing his very high quality photos under CC0.
• Opengameart: CC0 search - Huge number of CC0 game art.
• PublicDomainFlix - Watch public domain movies online.
• RKHive - CC0 sound fonts for music synthesis and MIDI playback.
• Samuel Killermann - Multi-disciplinary artist who puts his gifts to work to achieve global justice.
• 3DModelsCC0 - Library of public domain 3D models.

Articles

• Placing Documents into the Public Domain - Legal details of this process.
• Opposition to Copyright - Wikipedia article discussing opposition to copyright.
• Using CC0 for Public Domain Software - Drawbacks of using CC0 to license computer programs.
• Why I Release Things into the Public Domain - Brief history of copyright law and how it has evolved to harm society instead of help it.

Blogs

• ARIHERZOG - Posts on digital and political topics, as well as minimalism.
• Awesci - Entertaining articles mixed with scientific information.
• Billy Shih - Blog of a web developer at Full Circle.
• Char Bit - Writings about JavaScript from a full stack developer with 20 years of experience.
• Eclipsophile - All about solar eclipses.
• ExpandBeyondYourself - How to transform your life via personal growth and progress.
• FibroHaven - Creating a community of compassion, understanding, and healing for those with chronic illness.
• Go Beyond - Blog without a tagline.
• gr0wing.com - Personal and global change.
• Healthy Enough - Helping you become as fit and healthy as possible.
• HoboDrifter - Posts from a former world traveler.
• How To Be Kind - Kind words for a kinder world.
• Jay Tarlecki - Personal website of Jay Tarlecki.
• Melissa Miko - American writer, thinker, and entrepreneur.
• mnmlist - Less is the answer.
• Public Domain Review - Professional quality reviews of works in the public domain.
• Puro compás - Tango music and dancing.
• Referee Mindset - Helping referees develop skills to be the best they can be.
• Ryan Boren - Lead developer of WordPress at Automattic.
• Serendipity Journal - Journal of experiences with growth and faith from a Christian perspective.
• Simple Tech Tutorials - Computer tutorials with a focus on simplicity.
• Steve Pavlina - How we can deliberately invite, process, and integrate new experiences.
• Zen Habits - Finding simplicity and mindfulness in the daily chaos of our lives.

Books

• comicbookplus - Read old PD comics online.
• Cost of Freedom - On the dream for a free culture.
• LibriVox - Audiobooks read by volunteers.
• Project Gutenberg - Thousands of ebooks mostly in the public domain, in a variety of formats.
• Standard Ebooks - Hundreds of classics, beautifully formatted and typeset.
• Wikisource: PD search - Thousands of PD books and texts.

Essays

• Abandoning Copyright: A Blessing for Artists, Art, and Society - Discussion of how concentration of power is undesirable in every industry but particularly detrimental in the cultural field.
• The Surprising History of Copyright and The Promise of a Post-Copyright World
• Who’s Afraid of the Public Domain? - Breaking down five common assumptions about creative individuals.

Images

• CopyrightFreePhotos.com - Galleries of photos, each with their own theme.
• Foodiesfeed - A place to upload and find images of food without any copyright restriction.
• Internet Archive: PD search - A huge amount of PD works.
• LibreStock - Search all public domain stock photo websites at once.
• MyStockPhotos - A collection of images dedicated to the public domain through CC0.
• NegativeSpace - A repository of CC0 images.
• Openclipart - High quality, easy to use clip art.
• Old images on Pixabay - New images on Pixabay are not in the public domain, as they are released under the Pixabay License (among other things, incompatible with the GPL). Pixabay switched to the new license in 2019. Prior to that change, Pixabay used the CC0 waiver. Therefore, old images are still in the public domain, despite being misleadingly tagged with the Pixabay License. Before using an image, check what the state of the terms of service was at that point in time.
• Public Icons - Collection of free icons.
• PxHere - To find and upload CC0 images.
• Rijksstudio - Rijksmuseum digitised and made available public domain works from several artists including Rembrandt, Vermeer, and others.
• Skitterphoto - A place to upload and find CC0 images.
• SpaceX media - SpaceX media no longer lists its images as being in the public domain. Even on Flickr, it uses a CC-BY-NC license. However, old images (from here to here) had indeed been placed into the public domain and have no copyright restriction (including some images on Flickr).
• StockSnap - Stock photography without any copyright restrictions.
• Old images on Unsplash. Unsplash no longer uses CC0, so new images are not in the public domain (but all images released before the license change still are).
• Wikimedia Commons: PD search - Millions of PD media (images, videos, sounds, …).

Licenses

• CC0 1.0 Universal - Full text and explanation of CC0 at Choose a License.
• Unlicense - Template for disclaiming copyright monopoly interest in software you have written.
• WTFPL - PD-equivalent license (not actually public domain).

Organizations

• IndieWeb - People-focused alternative to the “corporate web”, movement that provides advocacy and education to domain owners.
• QuestionCopyright.org - Nonprofit organization that provides advocacy and education to help cultural producers embrace open distribution.
• Communia - Nonprofit organization that advocates for policies that expand the public domain and increase access to and re-use of culture and knowledge.

Related

• Creative Commons - Organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.
• Open Knowledge International - Organization whose mission is for everyone to have access to key information and the ability to use it freely.

Resources

• Anti-Copyright - Describes how intellectual property is not the same as material property.
• Anti-Copyright Resources - Large list of essays against copyright.
• Creative Commons CC0 - About the CC0 public domain dedication.
• Kopimi - Symbol showing that you want a work to be copied.
• Lively Days - Vegan recipes.
• The Safe Zone Project - Online resource for creating powerful, effective LGBTQ awareness and ally training workshops.
• Uncopyright: All Rights Released - Hub for the uncopyright movement, with lists of works, questions, answers, and other information.

Software

• CanvasPaint - Clone of Microsoft Paint in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Kakoune - Text editor inspired by Vim that features multiple selections, a client-server window architecture, and primitives for text manipulation.
• Libregamewiki: PD Games - Completely PD games.
• Luapower - Deploying and sharing Lua modules with a unique philosophy.
• single_file_libs - Many small PD libraries for programmers to use.
• SQLite - Embedded SQL database engine.
• Wikipedia: PD software - List of PD software on Wikipedia.
• youtube-dl - Command line program to download videos from YouTube and other video sites.

Talks

• Laws That Choke Creativity - Lawrence Lessig presents an argument for reviving our creative culture.

Other

• WikiData - Huge amount of data about the world, released under CC0.
• The Pig and the Box - Children book about the dangers of DRM, later released under CC0 (CC-BY-NC-SA no longer applies).

License

CC0 1.0