Use Public Domain to Create Your Own Copyright Product

You can actually create your own unique and copyright product if you use public domain products in a certain way.

It's called "derivative work" and it is a method of recreating existing public domain content by incorporating your own material as well as existing material so that it's a unique collection, book or piece.

When you do this, the portion of the material that you created is instantly protected, while the portion of content you extracted from the public domain continues to be available for use.

This is a very smart method of creating fresh, new products by blending existing content with your own unique material, so that you can present it as a new creation, revised or improved product, and one that cannot be directly replicated as your portion of the work belongs exclusively to you.

One thing to keep in mind as well, is that if you wish to prevent someone from taking an exact copy of material that you have pulled from the public domain and are selling online, is by following the “minimal creativity” requirement, which means that you must add a substantial amount of original content to the works, in order to claim a valid copyright.

Minimal Creativity requirement prevents people from pulling material from the public domain, ‘as is’, and then claiming copyright to the work.