If It's Donated, You Can Use It / Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

Before I move on, a word of warning: Be careful before you take something

you think is old enough to be out of copyright. Make sure you’re using a copy

of the original, not a modified version, because those modifications may be

protected! You can freely copy and use Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations,

but if someone has taken the original, edited it, and added notes, you can’t

use that. Nor can you use a version that has been translated in recent years,

because the translation will be copyrighted.

If the Guvmint Created It,

You Can Use It

This is a good example of your tax dollars at work. The U.S. government

spends many millions of dollars creating content. This content is not copy-

right protected. Thus you can take the full text of a government report and

publish it on your Web site. Yep, that’s right. As amazing as it may seem, you

can take, for instance, all the tax forms and instructions you want, or videos

created by the EPA, and post them on your site.

However, some rare exceptions exist. A government department may hold

donated materials that were originally copyright protected, and continue

to hold the copyright. It may commission a private individual or company

to create a work or publish the work under another arrangement, and that

person or company may hold the copyright. And works created by the

National Technical Information Service or the United States Postal Service

may be copyright protected.

If It’s “Donated," You Can Use It

Sometimes people simply give away their work — they “donate" it in one of

two ways. In some cases, a work may be given to the public domain, which

means the author relinquishes all rights to the work. In other cases, the

author may simply allow the use of the work, but retain copyright. For

instance, sometimes you see statements such as the one on the copyright

chart at www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm:

Chart may be freely duplicated or linked to for nonprofit purposes. No

permission needed. Please include Web address on all reproductions of

chart so recipients know where to find any updates.

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