Free Content

What can I do with Free Content?

Free content differs from open content in a number of ways. By definition, free content is any kind of abstract property, artwork, music, fictional characters, etcetera, wherein no legal restrictions are placed on what an individual can and cannot do with the content.

Basically, all of the works in the public domain are free content. If you are listening to a free content song, for example, you are free to play the song and release your own recording if you like. You could also use the song on a movie soundtrack, remix the song, or release it on a CD without having to pay royalty fees or get permission from the original author or copyright owner.

Even though, as of this moment, all content in the public domain is free content, works which are in the public domain because of expired copyright are actually subject to become non-free once more, as well as all of that work’s derivatives. This can happen in the even that copyright law changes, allowing people to renew long expired copyrights and so on.

A copyrighted work can fall into the free content domain. If an artist chooses to release a work as free content, then all of the liberties regarding free content will hold up. However, by default, copyright law grants monopolistic, exclusive rights to the copyright holder. As such, an artist who wishes for their material to be released as free content must explicitly declare the content to be completely free, by referencing or including licensing statements within the work itself (for example, in the form of a disclaimer at the beginning of a book, a declaration of free content liberties in the ending credits of a movie, etcetera).

Using free content, a user is allowed to charge for the sale of a copy of say, a book or movie which is considered free content. For example, The Night of the Living Dead is considered free content, thanks to an error made in regards to correctly copyrighting the film. As such, if you take a walk around a DVD store around Halloween, you are likely to see the film on sale from a dozen different DVD distributors, each with their own artwork on the cover. Of course, this also allows the film’s director, George Romero, to distribute the film himself, even though he does not have the right to prevent others from distributing it. As such, you will see, now and then, “official” versions of the DVD. Ethically, it is preferable to buy the “official” version of the DVD so that the director sees some return for his work, but legally, the other copies are not technically “bootleg”, and so, are completely legal to distribute and purchase.

You will also see so called re-cuts of the film. For example, there was a copy of Night of the Living Dead wherein an editor had spliced in his own original scenes, turning the movie into a sort of Christian themed horror film. The distributor did not need permission from Romero to do this. There is also the remake, Night of the Living Dead 3-D, and Romero did not need to give his blessing before the filmmakers pursued the production of that film, because the original work is considered free content.

This is not to be confused with open content, or open source. Open content includes any creative work which was published into a format such as that explicitly allows copying, modifying, editing, or remaking by anyone with access to the work itself.

The rights for open content do have limitations, though.

Free content can be freely sold, manipulated, distributed and bought regardless of circumstance. Open content can be freely manipulated and distributed… but not sold, unless explicitly allowed or licensed to someone who wishes to sell that material.

Open content can also be distributed with certain limitations set by the author or copyright holder. For example, a musician might release a song as open content, allowing free distribution, or for the song to be used in a movie, etcetera, but not in any context where money changes hands, or not if manipulated into such a way that the author would disagree with the derivative work, etcetera.

Free content, on the other hand, is just that: Free content, for any and all purposes.