Public Domain

What if we told you that right under your very nose there's a vast hidden treasure of copyright-free books, music, film, images, and all sorts of other intellectual properties that are FREE for the taking and you can do anything you want with - including legally repackaging and SELLING FOR MONEY AS YOUR OWN PRODUCTS? How would you like to be able to "steal" a never-ending supply of content - millions and millions of pages of content - and never have to pay one cent in royalties or licensing fees and use them to create products that you can sell over and over again keeping 100% of the profits?
http://www.publicdomaintreasurehunter.com/ezGaffurl.php?offer=rickdor&pid=8

The easiest Way to Create Articles – Public Domain!

There are many webmasters that find writing articles for their site to be a very tedious task. Many people who need to write articles also procrastinate as much as they can to delay the amount of writing they need to do. Many people dread writing articles because they find researching for the topic and writing down original materials will be too taxing on them.

You need to have your creative juices flowing and simply downloading an article would be plagiarism or tantamount to stealing, not exactly. Have you ever heard about public domain? These are articles written down by many authors that have declared their works to be public domain, which means anybody can use it for whatever purpose they want.

While most authors would prefer to copyright their work for their rights, there are also a number who doesn’t mind sharing their work. Public domain articles are not owned by anybody and can be used and abused by anyone. The writers have waived their rights to their works and it is out there for the public to make use of.

You can use public domain articles in helping you write your articles. With the public domain articles you can simply edit them to your own style and rewrite them as you please to make it suitable for your needs. All the ideas are there already and its just a matter of finding the write article with the topic or subject you need.

This is probably the easiest way to write articles. You don’t need to scour around the library or the internet for hours for information and start an article from scratch. For webmasters who are looking for articles to fill their site and to generate a high ranking for their website in search engine results, they can just modify the article by infusing keywords and keyword phrases related to their site.

A webmaster or website operator do not risk any chance of getting sued for copyright infringement because they are public domain, once again meaning that anybody can use it. Writing articles by using public domain wont require as much work as writing one from scratch would. You save a lot of time also.

One good factor in using public domain articles for your site or for any project is that you save a lot of money. You dismiss the need to hire experienced and seasoned writers that some website operators use to write their articles.  While a single five hundred worded article would only set you down 10 to 15 dollars, this cost will drastically increase when you need hundreds of articles to fill the needs of your site.

For those who needs articles to generate newsletters or an e-zine, public domain articles will be very beneficial. You do not need to count on your contributors or pay writers to write down articles for your newsletter or e-zine. You can fill all the pages without any cost or the worry of being sued and sought after by the writers. You can simply copy the articles and place them on your newsletter and e-zine.

Public domain articles are a virtual untapped resource that many people fail to realize the true value. The power of articles, keywords and keyword phrases have been deemed invaluable these past few years for many internet based businesses and sites that want to rank high in search engine results.

The number of article and content writers have grown significantly due to the rise in the demand for articles. As newer and newer topics and subjects have arisen, there are many demands for new articles to be written. An industry has been formed and this is a worldwide demand.

Public domain articles have given a great alternative for those who are cash strapped as well as do not have the time nor the skills to do their articles for themselves.

Searching for public domain articles is as easy as 1 – 2 – 3. You can search for them in search engines and do searches in many directories for the topic or subject that you need. Read them and simpy copy paste them to a word processing program and simply edit them to suit your needs.

I’m discovering more and more that there are behind-the-scenes “nobodies” that are creating incredible products and using them to make their fortunes without all the glory or fame. Well, I just found out about one such “nobody”, and the product he has created is going to really make some waves. Tony Laidig, a graphic artist who has been quietly working behind the scenes in the publishing industry for years, has “cracked the code” to finding Public Domain content. I was blown away by the amount of information he has amassed about the Public Domain (and a bit frustrated that he’s telling so much). I love his new product: “The Public Domain Code Book.” It’s a serious goldmine for creating information products and could very well cause a gold rush stampede into the mostly unknown Public Domain treasure fields. I have my copy and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I suggest you get yours as well.
PS – Make sure you also check out Tony’s bonuses. Personally I think he’s crazy to make the offer he is making, but sometimes people just get carried away with over-delivering. Go check it out now! Also, do NOT overlook Tony’s “Crack the Code” contest. This crazy guy is giving away some potentially serious cash…IF…you solve the puzzle he includes in the book. I’ve not seen anything in the industry quite like this. It’s brilliant!
http://www.thepublicdomainexpert.com/cmd.php?Clk=3910237

Public Domain - What Is It?

You may have heard of works that are in the public domain being used as new products by entrepreneurs today. This is a great way to start a business, or to improve the overall bottom line of an existing business. Work that is in the public domain includes any work for which the copyright has expired, and not been renewed, any work that was published prior to 1923, works produced by the United States Government, and other specific Governments, Work that is donated to the public domain, or any other work that has no laws that restrict its use by the public. The work itself may be in the form of a book, an article, a song, a film, a photograph, a painting, or even an invention. These works that are not covered by copyright laws, or are no longer covered by copyright laws, are free for the public to use as they see fit.

This does not mean that if a work is freely obtained it is in the public domain. In other words, if you saw it on a website, for free, that doesn’t mean that it is okay for you to use it. In fact, most things that are written down, in any form, are automatically copyrighted. Public domain refers to work in which the copyright has run its course. According to the Copyright Office of the United States: “The term of copyright for a particular work depends on several factors, including whether it has been published and if so, the date of first publication. As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. For works first published prior to 1978, the term will vary depending on several factors.”  

Public domain also refers to work that was meant for the public domain, such as work that is donated, as well as work that never had a copyright, which would be work that was created prior to 1923, or work that was not copyrightable material. These materials are free for the public to use, in any manner that they choose. You can use bits and pieces of a public domain work, or the entire work itself. You can create new work from the bits and pieces, or sell an entire work – as you see fit.  

You most likely know what a copyright is, but if you don’t, according to the United States Copyright Office, a copyright is a set of rights granted by the Government for a limited time to protect creative or artistic forms or works including literary works, movies, musical works, sound recordings, paintings, photographs, software, and industrial designs. While Copyleft is NOT an actual legal term, such as copyright, it is often referred to as a reciprocal license. With a Copyleft, instead of a copyright, restrictions are usually imposed on a work stating that when the work is copied, modified, or used in any subsequent work, the author of that subsequent work must grant the same Copyleft rights to the public for the subsequent work. It’s kind of like passing the rights forward. Copyleft is usually symbolized with a backward C in the copyright symbol. Copyleft is often used for open source computer software, documents, music, and art. Copyleft is essentially the opposite of a copyright.

Where a copyright basically says ‘no, you may not use my work,’ a Copyleft says ‘yes, please use my work, but you must allow others to use the work that you create from my work as well.’ The Public Domain Advantage Just as there are copyright licenses on copyrighted work, there must be Copyleft licenses for Copyleft work as well. The most commonly accepted Copyleft license is the GNU General Public License, or as it is commonly known, the GPL. 

So, if you find and wish to use work that is Copyleft, make sure that you understand that you must grant that same Copyleft privilege to the public as well. This is something that you must consider strongly before you create a product using Copyleft materials. Be aware that you are not just giving others the right to sell your work that was derived from Copyleft material – you are granting them the right to alter the work as well!  

How To Determine If The Work Is In The Public Domain 

Often, people who wish to use public domain work to create new products make the mistake of assuming that work is in the public domain simply because it is old. This is a mistake that is easily avoided simply by doing a small bit of research. When you find work that you wish to use to create your own product, you need to pay close attention to the copyright date. This will tell you whether a work is possibly in the public domain, but not necessarily that it is actually in the public domain. Copyrights can be renewed – and if you are looking at the copyright date of an original publication, the new copyright may not be reflected.  

After you determine that a work is eligible to be in the public domain, due to it’s copyright being dated the required elapsed time, you still need to contact the copyright office in that country to certify that the work is in fact in the public domain before you use it. Most copyright offices will require a research fee. You can avoid this fee by going to the copyright office and doing your own research. You can search some databases online, without paying a fee. For instance, if you want to look for work that was copyrighted in the United States, you can go to the Copy Right Office website and do a search in their online database.  

Also, make sure that you compare the copyright date of the work that you are inquiring about with the copyright laws in the country where the copyright was obtained – not in the country where you reside. The copyright laws of each country affect everybody, including people who do not live in that country. Remember that you should never assume anything. Always get certification that a work is in the public domain before you use it. You will save yourself a lot of time, not to mention a great deal of money and embarrassment!  

The Harder It Is To Find, The More Valuable It Is 

When you are shopping for antiques, the older it is, the more valuable it usually is. However, when you are searching for public domain works, it isn’t necessarily how old it is that adds value to it. How difficult the work is to find or obtain adds value! You’ve heard ‘if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.’ Well, the same applies to public domain works – if it was easy to find, everybody would have it, and it wouldn’t be worth much. For this reason, you should make it a point to seek out that which isn’t easily obtainable if you want to profit. This doesn’t mean that you can’t profit from public domain works that are easy to find – it just means that you will profit more from that which is hard to find. Everybody knows that we all want and are willing to pay well for those things which we cannot easily get!  

Choosing Public Domain Works - Your Objective 

Before you start your search for public domain works that you can use to create products, you need to have a clear objective in mind. In other words, just knowing that you want to use a public domain work to create your own product isn’t enough. You need to know what type of work it is that you want to create, and what public domain work will fill your need. It is never a good idea to go into anything blindly. You will of course want to conduct market research, just as you would with any other type of product that you wanted to create. Is there a market for your idea? A good way to find out if there is a market is to go to a search engine and type in keywords that would be used to search for your potential product. Pay close attention to the sponsored ads.  

Also go to your local bookstore and look at magazines that relate to your topic, again paying close attention to the ads. If you go to your public library, you can see back issues as well. Have certain advertisers purchased advertising space in previous issues as well? When dollars are being spent on advertising consistently, you can bet that there is a market. Once you know there is a market for your idea, the next step is to determine how you want to deliver your product. Will it be a physical product such as a DVD, a CD, or a printed book or manual? Will it be a digital product, such as an E-Book? You need to determine this, because the format that the public domain work you choose may matter a great deal to you. Now that you know what you want to create, and what format you want to deliver your product in to your customers, it will be easier to determine exactly what public domain material you are seeking – and of course knowing that will lead you to the right source to find it!  

How To Search For Public Domain Works 

Just knowing where to find public domain works does not necessarily make it an easy task. Consider the fact that there are literally millions – if not trillions – of works that are in the public domain. Unless you know what you are looking for, and where to look for it, it could be like searching for a needle in a haystack and sometimes it is like that even if you do know what you are looking for and where to look! You may think that you can go to one of the various public domain resources and just browse to find a public domain work that you can use to make a profit. The chances of this happening in this way are about as good as you winning the next lottery drawing without buying a ticket. The amount of sources and materials at those sources is incredibly overwhelming.  

First, you need a concrete idea. You need to know what it is that you want to accomplish and what type of work will accomplish it. Then, you must determine the best source for finding such a work. Then, you must search at that source. If you know the exact work that you are looking for, you will of course find what you are looking for faster. You may also need to consider how much or what type of editing you plan to do to a work before you begin your search. The format that the work is in may become an issue, unless it can easily be converted to a format that is suitable for editing purposes. You may have to download and look at many public domain works before you find what you are looking for. The good news is that your search for a suitable work that is in the public domain will most likely be the hardest part of creating your own product – once you have it, the majority of the work has been done! 

How You Can Profit From Public Domain Works 

There are many different ways that you can use public domain works to profit. How you choose to use public domain works will be in direct proportion with exactly what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, if you don’t have a product, you may use these works to create a product. If you do have a product, you may use public domain works to sell that product, or to make that product more valuable. You can even profit from public domain works without having or creating a product at all. The first way to profit is to find a public domain work that relates to your market, and rewrite that work to bring it up-to-date. You can also use various parts of different works to create the product. You can alternately sell a public domain work as it already is, as long as the information still applies to today’s world.  

Many people use public domain works to create a collection of some type. You can create collections of articles, collections of art or photographs, or collections of music. The possibilities are endless, and when you use public domain works to create a collection, you can put your name on the collection as the author, even though you aren’t the author of the individual works within your collection. As stated earlier, you can even profit from public domain works without having or creating a product. You can use public domain works to sell affiliate products. You can give the public domain work, in digital format, away to those who purchase products through you. Finally, you can use public domain works for content purposes. You can use the work as content for your website, or as articles that can be submitted to the article repositories to build website traffic. There are many more ways that you can use public domain works for profit. All you need to do is put your imagination to work, and choose the right public domain work for your purposes.  

Selling It As Is 

Make no mistake about it – a lot can be done with public domain works, and most of the time, using public domain works brings in profit. However, there is another option for using public domain works to create a product. You can simply leave the public domain work just as it is and sell it. Leaving public domain work ‘as is’ doesn’t mean that you should not digitize it. People like to have products that they can instantly download. You should also convert the work to a format that is more useable in today’s world. For instance, old film and video should be converted to DVD. Old music should be converted to CD. But these conversions can be done without changing anything else about the public domain work.  

If you are delivering the product physically, such as in book form, you will obviously need to have the work printed. It will then either need to be bound by a book binder, or turned into a manual. Either way is acceptable, but a bound book may bring in more money. You should also have the book in E-Book format as well for instant delivery. Obviously, you do not want to use public domain works ‘as is’ and claim it as your own work. This is not only dishonest, but it will ruin your credibility. Instead, you could package it and sell it with the author’s name in tact, but with you as the ‘presenter.’ This is perfectly acceptable, and can still be used to build your brand.  

If you are using a public domain work ‘as is’ for your product, it is very important that you review the work completely to make sure that all of the information it contains is still useable today. If it isn’t, you shouldn’t sell it ‘as is.’ Instead, you can sell it mostly ‘as is’ and make notations in the text concerning the outdated information, supplying the reader with more current information. When you do this, again use the original author’s name, but include your own name as well as the person who updated the information. Packaging Public Domain Works With Other Products

These days, it’s all about the bonuses. The most successful Internet Marketers know this, and they add countless valuable bonuses to their products, and even to products that they are selling for other people. You have probably seen this done, even if you didn’t pay much attention to it at the time – everybody loves to get more value for their money, and that is a desire that offering a bonus fulfills. If you aren’t increasing the value of your product packages, you simply cannot compete in today’s world. Using public domain works to create bonuses is a viable option that does not take a lot of time or work on your part, since the bulk of the work has been done. 

You can use public domain works as bonuses with your products or affiliate products. In most cases, the work must be digitized, but this is easily done. If the product is your own, you simply advertise the public domain bonus on your sales page, and when the product is purchased, make sure that your customer receives download or access information automatically. In the case of affiliate products it works a little differently, however. Since the sale will go through the merchants’ payment processor, the customer will need to come back to you in order to collect their bonus. It is acceptable to ask customers to send you a copy of their purchase receipt, after which, you send them the download link for the advertised bonus. You can also use public domain works as part of your product. It may be a separate product that is packaged with the product when it is sold, whether the product is physical or digital. The public domain product that you create to use as a bonus should also be available to purchase separately as well. This will give your customers an adequate sense of the value of the bonus product when they are viewing your sales page for the affiliate product or for the original product that you are offering.  

Sell The Resell Rights On Public Domain Materials 

Resell rights are very big on the Internet Marketing scene today. If you have resell rights, it means that you have the right to sell a product and to keep all of the profits. In most cases, if you have resell rights, you do not have the right to change the product or to name yourself as the author of the work – you simply have the right to resell it, and keep all of the profits. Public domain work that you use to create a product can also be sold with resell rights, which increases its value in most cases. It is a good idea, however, to limit the number of resell rights that you sell in order to ensure that the product retains that high value. If the market becomes saturated with the product, the value drops dramatically.  

You need to include a resell rights license with the product when you sell it. This license should spell out exactly what rights the reseller has. For instance, it is a good idea to limit the amount of money that the product can be sold for. If you sold the product for $50, you may not want to allow others to sell the product for more or less than $50. You may also want to state in the resell license that the product is not to be changed. Even if you use public domain works to create the product, if the original work was changed by you, it becomes yours. This means that you can copyright the work. You can retain that copyright, and still grant others the right to sell the product for 100% of the profits. Alternately, you can opt to sell your product which was created with public domain work as a private label rights product. This gives the people who purchase the private label rights more choices. They can put their name on the product as the author, and make changes to the work as well – again selling it for 100% of the profits. You can usually charge more for private label rights than you can for resell rights. You can also grant master resell rights, which gives those who hold master resell rights the right to sell resell rights.  

Turning Public Domain Works Into Digital Products 

We’ve become a digital world. Since the advent of the Internet, the cost of computers has steadily dropped, enabling the majority of homes in the world to own personal computers. For this reason, it is always a good idea to have your physical products in digital format as well. Often, you will find public domain works in the offline world, and need to convert them to digital products. If you want to convert film, music, or sound bites to digital format, this is easily done with the right equipment, and pictures can easily be scanned. However, converting written work to digital format takes a bit more work. It has to be re-typed! Since typing hundreds of pages can take a great deal of time, you may want to hire a typist to convert the work to digital format for you. Typists usually charge by the page or by the word, but the prices are usually quite reasonable and affordable.  

There are also services that will convert film, music, and sound bites to digital format if you do not have the necessary equipment. Costs for this type of work vary depending on the media that is being converted, and how much of it there is to convert. If you do not intend to use an entire work for your product, you can also choose to just have particular parts of the written work converted to digital format. This will save both time and money. Any pictures from the work that should be included can easily be scanned to your computer. Once non-digitized work is converted to digital work, it can be edited and manipulated however you see fit. You can use word processors, graphics programs, and sound programs to make the changes that you desire, but if you don’t have such software, or you don’t know how to use it, you can also hire freelancing professionals to make changes for you as well.  

Turning Public Domain Works Into Physical Products 

While we have become a digitized world, people still like physical products – including products that they can use on their computers, such as CD’s and DVD’s. Marketers also know that physical products typically bring more profits than digital products as well, because they are conceived to be more valuable. For editorial reasons, you will still need to convert non-digitized public domain works to digital work. Once the product is created and perfected, you will then need to convert it back to a physical product. You have many different choices in this area. The work can be made into a physical book or manual. This is easier to do than one might imagine. You simply send the work to a printing company who will print out the work and assemble it for you as you specify. The work can then be sent directly to your fulfillment company for filling orders.

The work can be put on CD or DVD. If the work is in presentation format, a DVD will work well. However, if the work will be turned into software, a CD will be more appropriate. While you can usually make the master copy yourself on your own machine, you should definitely send the master to a replication company to have multiple copies made. Often, you can find a company that does it all – printing, replication, and fulfillment. Usually, this will be the best value, since you can get all the work done in one place and then sent directly from there to your customers. Having a digital and physical form of the same product is always a good idea. You can offer the digital product at a lower cost. Some will prefer the digital product since it can be accessed or downloaded right away, while others will prefer to wait for a physical product.  

Building Membership Websites From Public Domain Material 

Membership websites, where members pay monthly fees, are fairly big right now. However, there is a problem that all membership sites face – lack of content. As with any other website, you must continually add fresh content to your membership website. In fact, fresh content is even more vital for a membership website, in order to keep the members happy. Obviously, writing all of the needed content can be very time consuming. But you can use public domain works as content for your site in various ways. This will save you both time and money – and keep your members happy at the same time! If you find a public domain book that is suitable for your market, you can use chapters or portions of chapters as articles for your website.  

You can even break these public domain works into portions and create entire courses out of them for your members. Books aren’t the only way to get content. You can also create website videos out of old film or broadcasts that apply to your market. You can even use old photographs and sound bites. You can also take text, sound, film, and photographs and make power point presentations that can be viewed on your website. You can literally get years and year’s worth of content for your membership website from public domain works, if you use the work correctly. The work may be useable as is, or it may need to be freshened up to make it valuable and useable by today’s world. In fact, if you find enough public domain works that are useable to your members, you can arrange content well in advance, and just post it to your members’ website at the appropriate scheduled times in a matter of minutes. When this is done in advance, it takes a great deal of the work out of maintaining a membership website.