Free content

Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content having no significant legal restriction relative to people's freedom to use, redistribute, and produce modified versions of and works derived from the content. It is distinct from Open content in that it can be modified, whereas one might not have that ability with content that is simply "open", and not "free".

Free content encompasses all works in the public domain and also those copyrighted works whose licenses honor and uphold the freedoms mentioned above. Because the law by default grants copyright holders monopolistic control over their creations, copyrighted content must be explicitly declared free, usually by the referencing or inclusion of licensing statements from within the work.

Though a work which is in the public domain because its copyright has expired is considered free, it can easily become non-free again with all its derivatives becoming non-free or illegal, if the copyright law changes.

A work released as public domain by its author is free and copycenter.

Example

Many of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects, including Wikipedia, are free content.

See also

• Creative Commons
• Free Culture Movement
• Free software and open source software
• Freedom of information
• Libre knowledge
• Open access
• Open content
• Open publishing
• Public domain
• Project Gutenberg
• Open Content Alliance

External links

• Open Knowledge Definition – project under the aegis of the Open Knowledge Foundation which provides a definition of 'open' suitable for content and data.
• Definition of Free Cultural Works – a definition of "free content" or "free cultural works" similar to the free software definition