Help:Public domain

 This document attempts to clarify whether copyright applies but see also Copyright policy and Copyright tags for categories to use.

Criteria
These tables summarise the conditions a work must meet in order to be safely considered public domain.

Published outside the United States
Note: Foreign works published after are likely to be still under copyright in the US because of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, even if they briefly entered public domain before the agreement. Only unambiguous conditions are listed below.

Edict of a government, local or foreign
See Official texts for more information.

Unpublished works
An unpublished work is one that has never been published in any form, or which was first published after 2003 but created before 1935.
 * Note for the European Union: If a previously unpublished work is published first time ("editio princeps") later than 70 years after the death of the author, then it is no more public domain but it is granted a copyright for 25 years (Council Directive 93/98/EEC, see here)

Copyright terms by country
These tables outline the estimated length of time of copyright per country. Laws regarding anonymous works, corporate-authored works, or non-literary works vary per country. This is not intended to be used as a legal guideline since it cannot reflect the complexity of the copyright laws in effect at any one time and since copyright laws are changing continuously; this section simply provides a useful summary as part of a more in-depth research. See also the following Wikipedia copyright length lists for further information:
 * List of countries' copyright length
 * Official text copyright
 * Rule of the shorter term
 * Moral rights
 * w:Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights