A work becomes part of the Public Domain when the term of copyright expires. This means that the work is no longer protected under the Canadian Copyright Act and can be used freely without getting permission or providing payment to the copyright holder of the work.
As of December 30, 2022, copyright for a work generally exists until 70 years after the end of the calendar year of the author's death. There are exceptions where entry in the public domain could be less than or greater than the 70 year benchmark.
Creators may also choose to donate their original creative works to the Public Domain. In doing so, creators waive the copyright to their work allowing others to freely use and/or adapt the work.
Works that are in the Public Domain can be copied with no need to obtain permission or pay royalties.
When attempting to make a determination as to whether or not a work is in the Public Domain in Canada there are a number of different factors to take into consideration. These factors are: Authorship; Literary, dramatic or musical work or engravings; Images; Cinematographic works or a compilation of cinematographic work; and Government Publications.
For more detail and visual representation of works entering the Public Domain, please consult the University of Alberta's Public Domain Flowchart.
The Creative Commons (CC) is an open license that allows others to reuse, adapt, and re-publish content. CC allows creators to explain, in plain language, how their works can be used by the broader community.
Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. A Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work defines how that work can be used.
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others
See NC's OER Guide for more information
Visit UNESCOS's Open Educational Resources guide for an overview on OER and universal access to information.
