Copyright Status Tool

How can you determine if a particular work is protected by copyright or in the public domain?

The Copyright Status Tool is a step-by-step guide to help you determine if a work is protected by copyright or in the public domain.

• This tool is based on the Copyright Genie created by Michael Brewer and the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy and is therefore licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
• This resource is not a source of legal advice or assistance. Results are intended to suggest next steps, and not to provide a final judgement.
• For the highest quality open the tool in Internet Explorer or Firefox.

For works first published only outside the U.S., architectural works, or sound recordings published before 1972 or created before 1972 and never published, consult Peter Hirtle’s Copyright Term Chart.