How to Tell If an Image Is Public Domain

How to Tell If an Image Is Public Domain (and Safe for Commercial Design)

Since 1 January 2026, every work published in the United States before 1931 has been in the US public domain, and so has every work made by a federal employee as part of their job. Between those two safe zones sits a band of 1931 to 1977 images that are free only if their owner skipped a formality, and almost everything made from 1978 onward is still protected. Public domain clears copyright only. A trademark, a museum's terms, or the face of a real person can still stop a commercial design.

The test for one image has two halves. First, find the year it was first published, whether it carried a copyright notice, and, for mid-century work, whether anyone renewed it; the table below turns those three facts into an answer. Second, check what else is attached to the picture. A 1930 cartoon can be free of copyright while its name is a live trademark, and a federal photo can be free of copyright while the astronaut in it keeps the right to control ads. All figures here come from US Copyright Office circulars, the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices and the official text of Title 17 of the US Code, read on October 30, 2026.

The US rule table, as of 1 January 2026

Copyright Office Circular 15A, revised in April 2026, states the headline plainly: "all works published in the United States before January 1, 1931, are in the public domain." The rest of the table follows from the same circular, from Circular 22 on investigating a work's status (also revised April 2026), and from sections 302 to 305 of the Copyright Act. Section 305 adds the detail that makes the arithmetic work: every term runs "to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire."

Two lines in that table carry most of the weight for designers. The first is the 1931 cut-off, which moves one year every January: works published in 1931 that were renewed join the public domain on 1 January 2027. The second is the 1978 line. No work created by a named individual after 1977 can have aged out yet, because even an author who finished a drawing in 1978 and died that year has protection through 2048. If an image looks modern and someone calls it public domain, the reason has to be something other than age: a federal author, a lost formality from the 1978 to 1989 window, or an owner who gave the rights away.

Publication, notice and renewal: the three facts the table needs

Publication. The Copyright Act defines publication as distributing copies to the public "by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending." Section 101 adds that a public display does not "of itself" count. That matters for old images more than people expect. A painting hung in a gallery in 1925 was displayed but not necessarily published, so the pre-1931 rule may not reach it; the painting would then sit in the unpublished row, with its term tied to the painter's death. Prints, postcards, book plates and magazine pages are the clearest evidence of publication, because they were copies sold to the public.

Notice. Before 1 March 1989 a published copy needed a copyright notice: the symbol or word, the year and the owner's name. Circular 22 says that for works first published before 1978, "the complete absence of a copyright notice from a published copy generally indicates that the work is not protected by copyright." The catch is the word "complete." A notice on the back of a print, on a title page or in a magazine's masthead may cover the image you are looking at, so a missing notice on a cropped scan proves very little. Find the whole original before you rely on its absence.

Renewal. For anything published from 1931 to 1963, the renewal record is the deciding fact. Circular 15A says that if a renewal "was not made within the statutory time limits, a copyright originally secured between 1950 and 1963 expired on December 31 of its 28th year, and protection was lost permanently." The same logic applied to works from 1931 to 1949, whose renewals all fell due before the 1976 Act took effect. The practical consequence is that a large share of mid-century illustrations, ads and photographs are free, but you cannot tell which ones by looking. You have to search.

Finding a renewal record for a 1931 to 1963 image

The Copyright Office keeps no shortcut. Circular 22 states that the Office "does not maintain any lists of works by subject or any lists of works that are in the public domain." What it does keep are its registration and renewal records, which reach you in two forms depending on when the renewal would have been filed:

1. Renewals filed before 1978. These appear in the printed Catalog of Copyright Entries, which the Office published from 1891 through 1978. Circular 22 says the Office has been digitizing the 660 volumes and that many are available through the Internet Archive's copyrightrecords collection. Renewal for a work published up to about 1950 would have fallen due before 1978, so this is where it would be listed.
2. Renewals filed from 1978 on. The Office's online catalog "contains entries from 1978 to the present," according to Circular 22. Renewals for works first published in the 1950s and early 1960s were filed in this period. For a work from about 1949 to 1951, check both sources, because its renewal window straddled the change.
3. Paid search. The Office will search its records for an hourly fee and give you a report, and it will certify the report for an extra fee. Circular 22 also warns that a search is not conclusive: an image may have been registered under another title or as part of a larger work, such as a whole magazine issue.

That last warning is the one designers trip on. Circular 22 notes that individual contributions to a copyrighted periodical "are usually not listed separately by title." A 1955 magazine illustration may have been renewed as part of the issue, under the publisher's name, with no mention of the artist. Search for the magazine and the issue date as well as for the illustrator.

Works made by the federal government

Section 105(a) is the one rule that makes a recent image safe on age-free grounds. Copyright "is not available for any work of the United States Government," and section 101 defines that as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." The Compendium, chapter 300, adds that the bar applies "regardless of whether it is published or unpublished" and reaches work by the President, Congress, the federal courts, and federal departments and agencies, as well as work by employees of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the organized territories.

Two words in that definition do the filtering: "employee" and "official duties." A photograph a park ranger takes on assignment is covered. The same ranger's weekend landscape, sold through a stock agency, is not. A NASA mission image produced by agency staff is covered. An image on the same NASA page licensed from a university or a private photographer is not, and NASA says so on its own guidelines page: it "occasionally uses copyright-protected material of third parties with permission," marks those images with the holder's name, and states that its use "does not convey any rights to others to use the same material."

Federal does not mean state, city or contractor

The exceptions are where federal-source images go wrong:

• State and local governments are outside section 105. It covers the United States Government only. A photo from a state tourism board, a city transit agency or a public university may be fully copyrighted. The narrower government edicts doctrine, which the Compendium describes at 313.6(C)(2), keeps judges and legislators from owning the law they write. It does not free a state agency's marketing photography.
• Contractors and grantees. The Compendium notes that the federal government "may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise," and gives the example of an agency registering a website built by a contractor who was not working for hire and assigned the copyright. An image made under contract can sit on a .gov site and still be owned by someone.
• Bodies that are not "the government." Compendium 313.6(C)(1) lists the US Postal Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio as entities whose employees' works are not considered works of the US government. Postage stamp art is the example designers meet most often.
• Civilian faculty at military schools. Section 105(b) gives the copyright to a "covered author," defined in 105(d) as a civilian faculty member at listed institutions such as the US Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. It applies only to a "covered work," which 105(d) limits to a literary work written for publication by a scholarly press or journal, so it rarely reaches images. Where it does apply, the government can require a royalty-free license.
• Mixed publications. Section 403 deals with copies "consisting predominantly" of government works and requires the owner of any protected portions to identify them in the notice. A federal report can contain a copyrighted chart or photo; look for the credit line on each image, not on the cover.

These exceptions are US law only, and reading them here is general information for designers rather than legal advice. Any image a business is going to rest on deserves a lawyer's look.

Five catches that survive public domain status

A clean answer on copyright is the start of the clearance, not the end. The Library of Congress puts it bluntly in its guide to its own collections: "Privacy and publicity rights are separate and distinct from copyright," and users are "responsible for determining whether there are privacy and publicity rights considerations." The same page lists "trademark and classified status" as other legal issues. These are the five that come up in design work.

1. Trademarks on characters, names and insignia

Copyright and trademark protect different things and run on different clocks. Copyright ends; a trademark lasts as long as it is used to identify who makes or sponsors goods. The federal unfair-competition provision, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), reaches any use "on or in connection with any goods or services" of a word, name, symbol or device that "is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association" with another person, or "as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval" of the goods.

For a designer, that means a cartoon character whose first appearance is now out of copyright can still have a name, a logo and a costume that work as a brand. Three practical lines follow:

• Use the version that is actually free. The rule table frees the work as it was published in a given year. A character first published in 1930 is free in its 1930 form. Later redesigns, colourings, voices and catchphrases are separate works with their own dates.
• Do not let the character act as your label. A public-domain image printed as the art on a poster is a different act from putting the character's name in a shop title, a product name or a logo, where buyers may read it as an endorsement.
• Some insignia are protected by statute, not just trademark. Compendium section 314 lists names and symbols "restricted by federal law" such as "Olympic," "Smokey Bear," "Woodsy Owl," the 4-H Club emblem and the Red Cross sign. NASA's guidelines page opens with a similar warning: "The NASA Insignia, Logotype, identifiers, and imagery are not in the public domain," and the insignia's use "is protected by law." The agency's photos are generally free of copyright; its logo is not free to put on a product.

The site's guide to copyright versus trademark for logos sets out how the two systems overlap, and the fan art selling guide applies the same split to characters on merchandise.

2. A photo of public-domain art may carry its own rights

A 1880s oil painting can be in the public domain while the photograph you downloaded of it is not. Whether the photo adds anything protectable depends on what the photographer did. The Copyright Office's position is set out in three places in the Compendium:

• Section 909.3(A) says a photograph that is "merely a 'slavish copy' of a painting, drawing, or other public domain or copyrighted work is not eligible for registration," and that "merely scanning and digitizing existing works" lacks enough creativity. Its example is a high-resolution photo of the Mona Lisa that is "virtually identical to the painting," which the Office would refuse to register.
• Section 917.1 says an art reproduction is protectable only "if the reproduction contains new authorship that does not appear in the original source work," and that the skill or investment needed to make a near-exact copy does not count.
• Section 313.4(A) quotes a 1999 federal trial court decision, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel (S.D.N.Y.), that "exact photographic copies of public domain works of art would not be copyrightable under United States law because they are not original."

Read those carefully before relying on them. They describe the Copyright Office's registration practice and one trial-court ruling from New York, not a statute or a nationwide appellate rule. They also concern flat works photographed straight on. A photograph of a sculpture, a building or a carved frame involves angle, lighting and framing, which can be original authorship of the photographer's own. And they say nothing about other countries, where the photo of the painting may be treated differently. The safest commercial source for an old artwork is an institution that has itself released its photograph under CC0, which is the next catch.

3. Museum and archive terms of use

Museums often hold the only good photograph of a public-domain object, and the website you download it from has terms. The terms matter because they are a contract you accept, and because the institution may not have released every image of every old work. Four programs read on October 30, 2026 show the range:

The pattern across all four is the same. The CC0 label is the institution's waiver of whatever rights it might hold in its own photograph. It is not a promise about trademarks, the people in the picture, or third-party claims. Pages without the label are not a green light, and the Art Institute says to read a missing download button as a no. The site's free stock photos for commercial use guide compares these museum programs with the stock libraries, and the Creative Commons licenses guide explains how CC0 differs from the attribution licenses.

4. Faces, names and publicity rights

A photograph's copyright and the rights of the person in it are separate, and the second is a matter of state law. New York's Civil Rights Law section 50, read on the New York State Senate site, makes it a misdemeanor to use "the name, portrait, picture, likeness, or voice of any living person" for advertising or trade without that person's written consent, or a parent's consent for a minor. Section 50-F extends protection to deceased personalities who were domiciled in New York at death, for 40 years after death, and lets successors register a claim with the Secretary of State; a successor cannot sue over uses that happen before registering.

NASA applies the same principle to its own public-domain photographs. Its guidelines say that if a NASA image "includes an identifiable person, using the media for commercial purposes may infringe that person's right of privacy or publicity, and permission should be obtained from the person." It adds that current NASA astronauts and employees cannot have their names or likenesses used on commercial products or advertising.

For a designer, the line runs between editorial or decorative use and use that sells something. A 1920s crowd scene on a book cover is lower risk than a recognisable face on a product label, an ad, or a T-shirt that implies the person backs the brand. State laws differ, as the Library of Congress points out, and this page reports only New York's text as read.

5. Newer layers on an old work

Old images are often reissued with something added: a new colourisation, a restoration, a border, a caption, a typeset title, a collage. Circular 22 warns that even when material in a derivative work is in the public domain, "this does not mean that the 'new' material added to it can be used without permission." The Compendium agrees that a derivative work may be registered for its new authorship, and that this protection "is independent of" the old material. Merely restoring a damaged photo to its original state does not add authorship, according to Compendium 909.3(A), but a hand-coloured version or a redrawn vector trace may.

The fix is to work from the earliest copy you can find. A scan of an original 1925 poster is the 1925 work. A 2019 "remastered" edition sold as a print pack is the 1925 work plus whatever the 2019 seller added, and you cannot easily separate the two. Simple shapes are a separate case: Circular 33 notes that "familiar symbols and designs" such as the peace symbol, common patterns like houndstooth or checkerboard, and industry symbols like the caduceus are not copyrightable at all, so a vintage logo built only from those parts may owe nothing to copyright even though it could still be a trademark.

Six images put through the table

These cases are invented to show the reasoning. None describes a real image, and each verdict is only as good as the facts assumed in it.

A 1926 travel poster, original print, notice in the corner. Published before 1931, so the copyright has expired whatever the notice says. Remaining checks: is the railway's or airline's name still a trademark, and does the poster show a recognisable person? If the design will use the image as artwork rather than as a brand, it clears. Work from a scan of the print, not a modern "restored" version.

A 1958 magazine illustration, issue carries a notice. Published in the renewal band. The renewal would have been due in the 28th year, around 1985, so the online catalog (1978 to present) is the place to look. Search the illustrator's name, the magazine title and the issue. If nothing turns up under any of them, the work is probably public domain, with the residual risk that it was renewed under a title you did not try. Note your search terms and the date.

A 1985 concert poster with no notice anywhere on it. Published in the 1978 to February 1989 window. It is free only if none of the cures in section 405(a) applies: registration before or within five years of publication (so by 1990), a small number of noticeless copies, or a written demand for notice that the distributor ignored. A registration search in the online catalog answers the first cure; the other two depend on facts you may never learn, so treat this one as uncertain.

A NASA photograph of the Moon with the agency logo in the corner. A work of federal employees, so no copyright. The photograph can be used; the insignia cannot be used to suggest NASA backs the product, and NASA's page states the insignia is not in the public domain. Crop or remove the logo, and if an astronaut is identifiable, keep the image off ads and products.

A state transportation department photo of a bridge. Not a federal work, so section 105 does not apply. Treat it as copyrighted unless the agency's site gives a license or a public-domain statement.

A museum's CC0 photo of a 1790 portrait. The institution has waived rights in its photograph, the portrait itself is long out of copyright, and the painted sitter died centuries ago. This is the cleanest commercial case in the list. The museum's name and logo stay off the product, as the Cleveland Museum of Art's terms put it.

The record to keep for each cleared image

A public-domain decision rests on facts that are easy to forget and hard to rebuild when a platform sends a takedown. Keep a short record with the file. A takedown reply that shows your reasoning, with dates, is far stronger than "I found it online." The DMCA takedown guide covers what happens next if a claim arrives.

That last row is easy to skip. A shop that ships worldwide is publishing in every country it ships to, and each country has its own term. The answer in this table is the US answer.

Where a "probably" is the honest result

Some images will not resolve. A photograph with no date, no credit and no publication history cannot be placed in the table, and an anonymous image found online is more likely to be a recent upload stripped of its metadata than a lost 1920s print. Tags on image-sharing sites are claims by whoever uploaded the file. They are not a status the Copyright Office has confirmed, and the Office does not keep a public-domain list to confirm them against.

When the facts run out, there are three sound options. Find a better-documented copy of the same work, such as a museum's CC0 scan or a library item with a rights advisory. Use a different image whose status is clear, from the free illustrations or free vector graphics libraries, where a written license replaces the history search. Or pay for a license from someone who can grant one. Guessing is the one option that turns a one-off file into a recurring liability, because a product stays on sale long after the guess was made.

If the work is yours and the question runs the other way, how long your own designs stay protected and how to register them, start with the copyright registration guide.

Reader questions about public domain images

Is everything published before 1931 safe to use?

Its US copyright has expired, according to Copyright Office Circular 15A. That does not clear trademarks on names and logos shown in it, publicity rights of identifiable people, or rights in a later restoration or colourisation of it. It also does not settle the question in other countries, which set their own terms.

When does the next year of work enter the public domain?

On 1 January each year. Terms run to the end of the calendar year under 17 U.S.C. 305, so renewed works first published in 1931 stay protected through 31 December 2026 and become public domain on 1 January 2027.

If an image has no copyright notice, is it public domain?

Only for older work. Circular 22 says a complete absence of notice generally means no protection for works first published before 1978, that omission from 1978 to 28 February 1989 could be cured by timely registration, and that for works published on or after 1 March 1989 a missing notice "does not necessarily indicate that the work is in the public domain."

Are all photos on .gov websites public domain?

No. Section 105 covers only works by federal officers and employees made as part of their official duties. Agency sites also carry contractor, university and stock images, and NASA states that its use of third-party copyrighted images gives others no rights to them. State and city government sites are not covered by section 105 at all.

Can I copyright my design if it uses a public-domain image?

You can claim your own new authorship, such as your layout, drawing and text, but not the public-domain part. The Compendium says a derivative work may be registered for the new material, and that the protection is independent of the underlying public-domain work. Anyone else can still use the original image.

Is a museum photo of an old painting free to use?

If the museum releases it under CC0, yes, subject to the museum's other terms about its name and trademarks. If it does not, the Copyright Office treats a "slavish copy" of a flat artwork as unregistrable, but that is registration practice and one New York trial court's view, not a guarantee, and the museum's site terms still apply to your download.

Is CC0 the same as public domain?

Close in practice, different in origin. Public domain by expiry means the copyright term ended. CC0 is the owner's dedication of rights they still hold. Both let you use the work commercially without credit, and neither clears trademarks or publicity rights. The Creative Commons guide covers CC0 in detail.

Can I put a public-domain cartoon character on merchandise?

The version that is out of copyright can be reproduced, but later versions of the character may still be protected, and the character's name or logo may be a trademark. Using it in a way that suggests the trademark owner made or approved your product risks a claim under 15 U.S.C. 1125(a).

Statutes, circulars and terms pages read

• US Copyright Office, Circular 15A, Duration of Copyright, revised April 2026, read October 30, 2026: the pre-1931 rule, the 1909 Act terms, mandatory renewal for 1950 to 1963, automatic renewal for 1964 to 1977, year-end expiry, URAA restoration, and pre-1978 unpublished works.
• US Copyright Office, Circular 22, How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, revised April 2026, read October 30, 2026: notice rules before and after 1 March 1989, the Catalog of Copyright Entries and online catalog coverage, search limits, derivative works, and protection in foreign countries.
• US Copyright Office, Circular 33, Works Not Protected by Copyright, revised March 2021, read October 30, 2026: familiar symbols and designs.
• US Copyright Office, Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition, Chapter 300 (sections 313.4(A), 313.6(C)(1), 313.6(C)(2), 313.6(D) and 314) and Chapter 900 (sections 909.3(A) and 917.1), both chapters dated January 28, 2021, read October 30, 2026.
• Office of the Law Revision Counsel, United States Code, Title 17, sections 101, 104A, 105, 302, 303, 304, 305, 403 and 405, and Title 15, section 1125, text current through Public Law 119-136 (October 22, 2026), read October 30, 2026.
• NASA, Images and Media guidelines, page last updated October 27, 2026, read October 30, 2026: insignia status, third-party material and identifiable persons.
• Library of Congress, Understanding Copyright, last updated February 7, 2020, read October 30, 2026: rights advisories, "no known copyright restrictions," and privacy and publicity rights.
• Art Institute of Chicago, Open Access Images; Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access; J. Paul Getty Trust, Open Content Program; all read October 30, 2026.
• New York State Senate, Civil Rights Law section 50 and section 50-F, read October 30, 2026.
• The derived dates in the rule table (for example, 1930 plus 95 years ending on 31 December 2025, and the 2048 and 2073 earliest expiries for post-1977 works) are our own arithmetic from the statute and circulars.
• Gaps we did not fill, because we had no primary text to check them against: the terms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Smithsonian open access programs, California's publicity statute, European Union rules on reproductions of public-domain art, the date range of deaths covered by New York section 50-F, and current Copyright Office search fees.