The Center for the Study of the Public Domain is the first university center devoted to the study of the vital contributions that the public domain makes to our art, science, creativity, and culture.
On January 1 2026, thousands of works published in 1930 and sound recordings from 1925 went into the US public domain. See what became open to all in our annual article. Our work generated a great deal of interest—you can read and listen to highlights from the media coverage on NPR’s Morning Edition, Associated Press, Smithsonian, LA Times, and NPR digital.
Many people view intellectual property law as abstruse and impenetrable, yet it affects us all every day, particularly those of us who are artists. The Center has published two scholarly comic books that aim to demystify the subject. Bound By Law is an accessible guide to “fair use” in American copyright law – a vital privilege necessary for both creativity and free speech. Theft: A History of Music explains the role of the musical commons and musical borrowing through a 2000-year long history of music, from Plato to rap. Like everything the Center produces, they are available for free download under Creative Commons licenses and in inexpensive paperback versions.
Educational books are far too expensive. Jenkins’ Music Copyright book – which can be used as a textbook or general introduction – and Boyle and Jenkins’ Intellectual Property textbook are available for free download.
The Constitutional goal of our IP system is “to promote the progress of science and useful arts,” and the public domain plays a central role in doing so.
The public domain is the realm of material—ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts—that is unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon. Our economy, culture and technology depend on a delicate balance between that which is, and is not, protected by exclusive intellectual property rights. Both the incentives provided by intellectual property and the freedom provided by the public domain are crucial to that balance. But most contemporary attention has gone to the realm of the protected. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is the first university center devoted to the other side of the picture: the material that may be used, repurposed, reshaped, and built upon without permission or fee.
