Public domain
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Public domain is when the creator of the content/software wishes to allow anyone, anywhere, complete and unrestricted access to use, distribute, modify, sell, or do anything else with software or media.
Legally, public domain usually is what a work becomes when the copyright term expires, unless it is, for example (may not be true for all countries), a government work.
Because laws often only consider the copyright a right, an expired public domain work can be made copyrighted again by a later law, even though taking more rights away is prohibited.
It can mean different things in different countries. For example, the United States “public domain” does not require attribution, while the Russian Federation one does. In some countries, it is possible to release a work as public domain in the legal sense of that country’s law, but in others, it may be impossible. Some laws may also require that, if no price is mentioned in the license agreement, the work be paid or commercial use be prohibited.
Because of the different variation in copyright law, the Creative Commons Zero has been created to grant public domain in all countries as much as possible.
