The Public Domain Unleashed

eBay is a great source for finding just about anything. That also makes it a great source for finding public domain works that you can use for your own projects. This article will examine how to use eBay’s search feature to find potential public domain works that you can use.

I say potential works because you will still want to verify that the works in question are indeed in the public domain before using them. In other words, just because an eBay seller says a particular work is in the public domain does not necessarily mean that it is true. So you always want to take that little extra bit of time to verify before purchasing and using any works off eBay.

The easiest way to start is to do a search with the phrase “public domain” as an advanced search. By placing public domain in quotes, that exact phrase must appear in the body of the eBay ad. Be sure to select search titles and descriptions to generate a comprehensive search.

This is a very generic search and will return 1000s of results. A search of this type is fun for just hunting around for ideas. For instance, I just ran this search and I see the following types of titles on the first page of results.

• ACUPRESSURE acupuncture points medicine stress relief
• *** Learn Spanish: Spanish MP3 Audio Course DVD ***
• SUPERMAN, OTR OLD RADIO STANDARD AUDIO FORMAT 10 CD SET
• RELAX INTO STRETCH INSTANT FLEXIBILITY rehabilitation
• ULTIMATE SYSTEM FOREX CURRENCY DAY TRADING STOCKS TRADE
• FOUNDATION SPORT RELATED BRAIN INJURIES therapy rehab
• TITaNIUM TECHNOLOGy metallurgy engineering metals
• WATER DESALiNATiON TREATMENT ENGiNEERiNG
• FINEST CLASSIC LITERATURE MP3 AUDIO BOOKS VOLUME 2
• Hydraulic Motors Valves Pumps ManualsCourses 5 Book CD

and many more… And this is just on the first page of 5000+ results returned.

If you want to do a more specific search, you can add a niche keyword like in this search phrase:

“public domain” acupuncture

Running this phrase returned 11 results in the books category of eBay and 26 results when run against all categories of eBay. This is a great way to start doing niche research of goods on eBay.

Following along with the acupuncture example, many folks on eBay are just selling used items with no claim on what their copyright status is. They don’t know and they aren’t interested. They just have a book or other work they want to sell.

So in this instance, we can run the niche word alone - acupuncture - and run it just against both the books section and all of eBay.

The books section returns 314 results.

All of eBay returns 1552 results.

While it is common sense in this instance to be focused on books, many people put items in different categories. So by searching all categories you may come across a gem you wouldn’t find if you restrict yourself to just the books category.

Of course, once you’ve figured out the searches you want to run, you now come to the time consuming part.

You must start looking at the ads and see if any of the works have the potential to be in the public domain (i.e. published before 1964, etc.) and then do a copyright check on the work to see if it is actually in the public domain or if it has had its copyright renewed. You might also need to contact a seller to ask questions - like the copyright date of a book - if the ad doesn’t contain all the details you need for your research.

So why would you want to invest this time searching eBay when there are already so many public domain works digitized and available online?

Taking this approach allows you to find unique works that no one else has easy access to. Works that are online represent just a fraction of all the public domain works out there and with a little extra effort you have the opportunity to find a work that will be uniquely yours because you chose to expend a bit more effort than the herd.

And what would you prefer? Being the only person selling a particular work in a hot category? Or being one of dozens selling an easy to find work that is already online and available for free to anyone who does a google search on the book title?