logo Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

The Public Domain Calculators code is now in a separate library

March 5, 2011 in Bibliographic, OKF Projects, Open Data, Public Domain, Public Domain Works, WG Public Domain, Working Groups

The following post is from Jonathan Gray, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation.

As many of you will know, the Public Domain Calculators aim to make it easier to find out which works are in the public domain in a given jurisdiction. There are two main parts of the project:

  1. A collection of flowcharts, mapping copyright laws in different countries
  2. A library of code (part of PublicDomainWorks.net)

Recently we’ve been doing a bit of work to make the Public Domain Calculator code into a standalone library that can be integrated into lots of different software packages and services. The library has been stripped down of all the code from PublicDomainWorks.net and is now available at:

Our long-term vision is to turn the Public Domain Calculators into a code library which can be plugged into different software or websites that interface with a variety of archives, repositories, library catalogues, and so on. Because all of the code and content is open, all of the legal reseach can be peer reviewed and the algorithms can be optimised and improved.

If you’re interested in getting involved, please visit:

If you want to find out more you can also watch our short video about the project!

Related posts:

  1. New microshort film on the Public Domain Calculators! Last week I sat down with Primavera De Filippi, our new coordinator for the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on the Public Domain and we edited some footage we had shot at a meeting a while ago into a microshort...
  2. Public Domain Works + The Open Library As some of you will know, Public Domain Works, a joint initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation, Free Culture UK and the Open Rights Group, had its alpha launch back in August. The Public Domain Works Database is an open...
  3. Which works fall into the public domain in 2010? On the first of January every year works from around the world fall out of copyright and into the public domain. But, how do we know which works fall into the public domain when? In previous years there have been...

 

2 responses to The Public Domain Calculators code is now in a separate library

  1. Stefano Costa said on March 5, 2011

    Very good news! It would be interesting to call for contributors and get more jurisdictions covered.

    It should be quite easy also to create a web service for use by external websites (via API). I imagine e.g. library catalogs linking to it to determine automatically if a work is PD or not. Any thought on that?

  2. Adem said on April 28, 2011

    I have been working on my site offline for quite some time now, building and customising a joomla site when you have no clue what you are doing, is quite a tedious task.

    My site will share a collection of some very nice public domain reads, I am also in the process of redesigning them and converting each one to txt, pdf and .doc.

    I am also doing all the design for the site, but I am so happy to see something like this being built.

    I would love the idea of helping out for this site, just email me and let me know.

    Thanks

Related posts:

  1. New microshort film on the Public Domain Calculators! Last week I sat down with Primavera De Filippi, our new coordinator for the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on the Public Domain and we edited some footage we had shot at a meeting a while ago into a microshort...
  2. Public Domain Works + The Open Library As some of you will know, Public Domain Works, a joint initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation, Free Culture UK and the Open Rights Group, had its alpha launch back in August. The Public Domain Works Database is an open...
  3. Which works fall into the public domain in 2010? On the first of January every year works from around the world fall out of copyright and into the public domain. But, how do we know which works fall into the public domain when? In previous years there have been...
Avatar of Jonathan Gray

Written by

By day Jonathan works at the Open Knowledge Foundation. By night he studies philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. You can find out more about him on at jonathangray.org and follow him on Twitter at @jwyg.