Page:Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians.pdf/40

COPYRIGHT LAW - 27 - use. If you are distributing a book in a particular country, then the law of the country where you are distributing the book generally applies.

This is true even in the era of the Internet, though it is much harder to apply. For example, if you are a Canadian citizen traveling to Germany and using a copyrighted work in your PowerPoint presentation, then German copyright law normally applies to your use.

It can be complicated to determine which national law applies in any given case. This complexity is one of the benefits of Creative Commons licenses, which are designed to be enforceable everywhere.

Final Remarks

Even though global copyright treaties and agreements exist, there is no one “international copyright law.” Different countries have different standards for what is protected by copyright, how long copyright lasts and what it restricts, and what penalties apply when it is infringed.

2.3 | THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

The “public domain” consists of creative works that are not subject to copyright. This is the enormous pool of publicly available material which circulates freely, and from which new creative works and knowledge may be built. Figure 2.4 shows a still from the 1902 French film Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon), which is now in the public domain. A still from the 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)