The Public Domain Unleashed

People like to be entertained while driving to and from work. They have many options… radio, satellite radio, talk radio and a wide variety of cds - from music cds to educational cds to audio books on cd.

The audiobook market is huge. They are sold at every bookstore in the country and available at most libraries for checkout.

All it takes to create an audiobook is to have the rights to use a book and the ability to convert it into spoken word. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Copyright law can be confusing. Here are several common myths about copyright.

a. If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it is not copyrighted

Sort of. After April of 1989, the US dropped the requirement to need a copyright notice to have copyright protection. Items prior to April of 1989 without a copyright notice may have lost protection but it is a very gray area as the Copyright Office allowed for corrections after publication In general, when seeking public domain products, it is best to stay away from gray areas as there is lots more material out there than you can ever use. Read the rest of this entry »

As a creator of physical products like CDs or DVDs, you may discover that you need a UPC code for your product(s) to be able to sell it in certain markets. For instance, Amazon requires a UPC code for CDs and DVDs.

So what is a UPC Code?

UPC is short for Universal Product Code. The UPC bar code was originally used in the grocery industry to allow price scanner and inventory automation. It was so successful in that industry, it quickly spread to almost all other industries. The UPC code is a series of numbers that is converted into a unique UPC barcode that is placed on a product. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you looking for a reliable way to handle your CD/DVD production offsite?

Are you looking for a cost effective way to oursource your entire manufacturing and shipping operation?

You might do well to consider Kunaki. They can both manufacture your CD or DVD products and ship them to your customer in a timely manner. Using Kunaki will give you more time to invest in the most important aspect of your business - generating more sales.

What is Kunaki? Read the rest of this entry »

This post is a short one.

There are many directories of public domain materials on the web but they are often difficult to ferret out. Wikipedia has an entry called Public Domain Resources that contains many links to fascinating collections of public domain materials. Read the rest of this entry »

Kurt Saxon is the creator of the Poor Man’s James Bond series of books that have earned his several hundred thousand dollars. And they were all started with public domain materials.

In fact, the first book in the series was primarily built by taking an old 1890’s farmer’s chemistry book. He photocopied pages in it and cut and pasted them into a book. (They didn’t have computers back then so it was all done by hand and is pretty crude in appearance.) This one book went on to sell more than 50,000 copies at $34 a copy over the years - and it was all done with public domain materials. And it is still for sale today - along with many other books he created the same way. Read the rest of this entry »