Public Domain Resources

Texts

• Placing work into the public domain
  by D.J. Bernstein
• Question Copyright
  A website from the (now defunct) QuestionCopyright.org organization. As of the time of writing this, the website is still up as an archive.
• Set Your Code Free
  by Arto Bendiken
• Who's Afraid of the Public Domain?
  by Peter Saint-Andre

Licenses

• 0BSD
  PD equivalent software license. Recommended for software.
• CC0
  PD dedication media license, with fallback permissive license. Recommended for media.
• MIT-0
  PD equivalent software license.
• SQLite License
  PD dedication software license. Not recommended in a formal setting.
• Unlicense
  PD dedication software license, with fallback permissive license.
• WTFPL
  PD equivalent general license. Not recommended in a formal setting.

The legality of complete public domain dedication is questionable to many lawyers. Even if that doesn't affect you, it might affect someone who would want to use your material, defeating the whole "use without restriction" thing. The CC0 has a strongly worded fallback for such cases, but it should not be used for software. In a software setting, you should either use a PD equivalent license alone, or dual-license under one.

Examples

• QOI's logo and specification (CC0)
• SQLite (SQLite License)
• yt-dlp (Unlicense)

Additional info

Wikipedia editors

You can dual-license your Wikipedia edits under the CC0 by placing this template on your user page. For more information, see the respective article in the Wikipedia namespace .

Adaptations of CC-BY works

The CC-BY license allows you to release adaptations that you made made under the CC0, though Creative Commons generally does not recommend this. ( Creative Commons FAQ ). Please do not use this to relicense another person's original work! Use common sense on what a "adaptation" constitutes, like a translation.