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Check carefully to be sure that content is public domain. As a rule of thumb, US federal government sites are public domain and unless there is a copyright or permissions notice that states otherwise. State, territory and local government sites<ref>State and local sites include sites ending in state abbreviations such as .mi.gov, .ny.gov, territory names such as americansamoa.gov, county names such as .aikencountysc.gov, but other sites have less obvious urls, such as .cahwnet.gov. There are hundreds of such sites</ref> | Check carefully to be sure that content is public domain. As a rule of thumb, US federal government sites are public domain and unless there is a copyright or permissions notice that states otherwise. State, territory and local government sites<ref>State and local sites include sites ending in state abbreviations such as .mi.gov, .ny.gov, territory names such as americansamoa.gov, county names such as .aikencountysc.gov, but other sites have less obvious urls, such as .cahwnet.gov. There are hundreds of such sites</ref> | ||
Search results are intended to be only from US federal government sites, not state or local; however the Public Domain Search is a work in progress not all non-federal sites have been removed yet.< | Search results are intended to be only from US federal government sites, not state or local; however the Public Domain Search is a work in progress not all non-federal sites have been removed yet. <br>For this reason, other searches such as [http://usasearch.gov/search/images usasearch.gov image search] are unsuitable, as they do not separate US federal from US non-federal government sites.</ref> | ||
== Public domain images == | == Public domain images == | ||
Revision as of 12:14, 2 December 2012
This custom search engine attempts to restrict the search to sites that contain mostly or completely public domain content. The majority of these sites are from the US federal government.
Check the results before assuming they're public domain. This search will never be perfect - there are many, many domains ending in .gov, and new domains are created each year - some of which are federal, some of which are not. Use caution. But we'll make it as good as we can.
Check carefully to be sure that content is public domain. As a rule of thumb, US federal government sites are public domain and unless there is a copyright or permissions notice that states otherwise. State, territory and local government sites[1]
Search results are intended to be only from US federal government sites, not state or local; however the Public Domain Search is a work in progress not all non-federal sites have been removed yet.
For this reason, other searches such as usasearch.gov image search are unsuitable, as they do not separate US federal from US non-federal government sites.</ref>
Public domain images
After searching, click the "Image" tab above the results.
Why is this needed?
There are other ways to search for content which has been tagged as Creative Commons licensed (or which uses a public domain "mark" from Creative Commons). Click "Advanced search" in your Google search and choose the relevant permissions. Or go to Creative Commons' search page - there are Google, Flickr and other search options.
This is great, but the Public Domain Search is complementary to this - it mostly searches sites that don't use a Creative Commons mark, and won't turn up in Creative Commons searches.
Public domain is also a bit different from other open content - CC-by and CC-by-sa. Note that if you want material compatible with Appropedia and you're using the Creative Commons search, you need to select "use for commercial purposes." (Although Appropedia is not-for-profit, our license allows commercial use.) And note that these searches, like the PDS, aren't perfect - they sometimes give results that use the wrong license.
Status (under development)
This search is functioning but is not properly refined. It returns useful results, but a significant number of non-public domain hits come up.
Seeking Law/IP Intern
Appropedia is looking for a law/IP intern, someone interested in this area, to help refine this Public Domain Search, based primarily on federal US government sources. If you are interested, please leave a message here. (User:Chriswaterguy is overseeing this project.)
Source
Note that all data use to create these searches is "open source" - see below for links and details.
- Public Domain Search/Included and excluded sites - what is searched, and what isn't.
- Public Domain Search/How the search is built (This is a work in progress - learn how you can help!)
- Public Domain Search/Searching Gutenberg.org
Give feedback
- If you know of any other true public domain sites, or find sites with the Public Domain Search which shouldn't be there, or other good public domain search engines, please let us know.
Disclaimer
NOTICE: Results are *mostly* public domain - but please double-check the content licensing before copying the content. Some pages (especially US state and local government that haven't been excluded yet) are not public domain, and others are not clearly marked - see US federal government websites and public domain for more information.
Porting public domain content
The main reason for creating and maintaining this custom search engine is to find and port good quality public domain content to Appropedia. If you are helping with this:
- Search for your topic using the Appropedia Public Domain Search. Find content (e.g. projects, general topic information, how-tos) that would be
- Make sure that the content really is public domain (look for a copyright notice, or "Web policies" or "Permissions"...)
- Port the content. The easiest way is to use WikEd. (See also Appropedia:Porting HTML to wiki - page needs updating.)
- Use the {{pd source}} template notice at the bottom of the page.
Footnotes
See also
- US federal government websites and public domain
- Other public domain searches and indices
- Open content - includes public domain, and licenses with minimal restrictions.
- Open content #Searching for open content - lists searches for Creative Commons licensed material (open content, but not public domain).
- Help:Finding open licensed images
- ↑ State and local sites include sites ending in state abbreviations such as .mi.gov, .ny.gov, territory names such as americansamoa.gov, county names such as .aikencountysc.gov, but other sites have less obvious urls, such as .cahwnet.gov. There are hundreds of such sites