Freelancing Reviews

Public Domain Part 3 Our Pre 1923 Writers Were Very Kind

Public Domain, Part 3: Our Pre - 1923 Writers Were Very Kind

Public Domain Works – Pre - 1923

The title of this article has been an attempt to give thanks to many creative works’ authors of the past ( pre - 1923 ), whose works have fallen into the public domain. Today in the early 21st century, we now have access to all of those works. To me, this is both an honor and a heartfelt responsibility, to take these works and publish anew. We are given the right - - and the honor - - to ensure that the works have a new life and are not lost in dim reaches of memory.

The phrase “body of creative works and other data or knowledge” includes music, literary works, artworks, inventions, movies, and scientific ideas - - just to name a few. This, of course, includes all works published before 1923, and with the right conditions, works published up until 1978. A modern marketer could locate such works, repackage them, and sell them anew, for a profit.

Seeking out public domain works is prone to being a tedious job. It can take many hours just to locate one or two good publications. These are writings created by many authors, and it has been legally acknowledged that their works are public domain, which means anybody can use the works for any type of purpose that they want.

While a huge portion of this material can be labelled " fair use, " not all of the works placed into the public domain database are free of copyright limitations. Currently, works published 75 years ago are evaluated as being public domain. Those published from 1924 - 1963; might be in the public domain, but only IF the proper copyright was not renewed.

Some writers, in current times, have relinquished their rights to their works. Now, it is out there for the anyone in the general public to utilize. You can do it and make money by selling the works in digital format. Or you could consider selling advertising. The public domain is chock full of literary works, books, videos, audio, software, journals, music sheets, and government publications and presentations that you can use in any way you desire. It is possible to create unlimited wealth with just a tiny bit of creativity.

You might create an audio Ebook by merely recording yourself reading it “as is. ” By modifying it to fit suit your own work, your conversion to a tape, CD, or DVD, really does increase the work’s perceived as well as real value.

For example, a quick search for the keyword “psychology” will return a search engine results page of fascinating publications like “The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, ” which turned out to be a 10 volume set. One of the main points of this article is to point out that expiring the copyright can essentially confer new life to these works that now only reside in lost corners of “the public domain. ” Of course, some of these works have been so admired that they’ve been re - published many times, by many separate publishers, that they’ve never truly been out of print.

There are so many works in the public domain out there, you basically could never run out of information to publish. There happen to be millions of public domain works that anybody can rewrite and revitalize, add their own name as author, and sell - - and they can even copyright and stop others from selling what has now become a derivative work.

No one other than the creator of this new work should have the freedom to profit from the work, or use it in any manner, without “endorsement” and approval from the new work’s creator. The proprietary things done to an old work, becomes copyrightable.

The superb ingredient of this area of law is that not only can the derivative work’s creator profit from the work itself, but the rights to the work are completely transferable. This is not so with reproduction and marketing rights of a current, copyrighted work, where the original creator customarily retains copyright and almost never allows others to alter his or her work or republish it.

With the advent of the Internet, this very situation raises new possibilities. We have seen the rise of what is now known as resell rights and also private label rights. As a Net marketer, it would be very good to explore these, as there is a lot of money being made by selling “Resell Rights” and packages of Private Label Rights items.

Indeed, pre - 1923 knowledge product creators left us a very kind legacy. I like to think that somehow they are elated that their works are being published anew.

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About The Author:

Peter Dobler is a veteran in the IT business. His passion for experimenting with new internet marketing strategies leads him to explore new niche markets.
Read more about his experience with freelancing; visit http://freelancing.tip4u2.com