Category talk:Public Domain Works & Properties

I don't think this is a useful category. Public domain is different in different parts of the world, and putting a fandom here (or leaving it out) could mislead fans about the status of a work in their own area.

Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, for example, is public domain in much of the world - but much of the original canon is not public domain in the US. Cthulhu Mythos canon; as of 2023, only those works published in 1928 or earlier are in the public domain; it's going to be 8 years before the rest are included, and some of the spinoff works by Derleth and others may be in "Life+70" status and it'll be a long wait for those. (Derleth died in 1971.)

I'm also not sure of the value of this category for fans - I like knowing what fandoms are public domain, but I don't see a notable amount of fandom activity that differentiates based on it. Are there public-domain-fandom fic fests, or other events/communities that separate activity based on copyright status?

We could, however, add a "Religion & Lore" category to cover mythology & pre-copyright historical fandoms. --Elf (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The immediate utility is for fans wishing to find fandoms they can create fanworks in with the certainty they won't upset the creator(s) or get sued. The longer answer is that there is a small but dedicated community centered around promoting, appreciating, and building upon public-domain works, or more broadly the public domain itself. This doesn't just encompass mythology and 19th-century novel fandoms. Living creators sometimes release their copyrighted works into the public domain, as happened yesterday with Fables. Plus there's a small body of artists, authors, and filmmakers who actively release original works in the public domain or under CC licenses. (It's been a long time since I followed the "copyleft" scene and sadly the biggest name I can remember offhand has become a huge transphobic bigot.) As for this category, it might be better to create a list of public-domain fandoms, which would allow jurisdictional differences to be covered in greater detail. But I definitely think PD fandoms are worth documenting. Night Rain (talk) 17:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I can see value in a "public domain fandoms" category (or a group of categories, based on location - I'm familiar with some pretty extensive differences between US, UK, and Australian public domains). But putting things like "Arthurian legends" into a public domain category is misleading; Merlin is not in the public domain, and neither is Sherlock (BBC). If we have that, we might also want a Creative Commons fandoms category. And while CC0 is functionally equivalent of "public domain," afaik that hasn't been legally tested; we'd have to decide how to categorize things like that.

I can very much see the value of a category that is "these works are 100% available for fanworks, no consideration of transformativeness needed, and some are available for commercial works." But I don't want to call things "Public Domain" when they are legally not; that is a potential liability issue for the OTW. --Elf (talk) 22:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

"This category includes creative works and media properties that fall within the public domain. However, it should be noted that not all media listed herein may be in the public domain, e.g. most modern adaptations of the original Sherlock Holmes stories (such as BBC's Sherlock) are still copyrighted."

I added this caveat to the category before this thread was started. I specifically wanted to clarify that adapations based on public-domain properties such as Arthurian legend may still be under copyright. It was simpler to make the fandom categories into subcats of the PD cat because they also include characters in the PD like Guinevere and Professor Moriarty. In any case, the legal complexities at play here are likely too great for this category to be workable under any name. This topic is probably best handled in an article, whether as a separate list or as a sub-section of Public Domain. Night Rain (talk) 06:09, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I've added a list of relevant fandoms to the article Public Domain. I feel it would be okay to delete this category now, since this would no longer result in the loss of information. Though it might be helpful to retain this discussion. If someone suggests creating a category like this in the future, they can be directed here. Night Rain (talk) 10:08, 18 September 2023 (UTC)