PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES, CAN ANYONE USE THEM?

Since Carol Highsmith filed a claim in federal court last week against several DMLA members under Section 1202 of the Copyright Act based on images licensed by such members that she provided to the Library of Congress LOC and were displayed on the LOC website as “unrestricted”, we have received many inquiries about the meaning of “what is public domain” and whether can you license a digital file or sell a work of art that is in the public domain.  Nancy Wolff, DMLA Counsel, answers this question in our blog here.