What is the public domain?

The concept of a public domain apparently spawned from the concept of public lands back when the United States government was forming in the 1780s. The most accurate definition of the term I've found comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "property rights that belong to the community at large." In other words, no one has monopoly control of material in the public domain – instead, we all gain rights to do with it as we please. Obviously, the public is going to have great interest in such a concept. The poor gain access to free information. The populace as a whole is enriched by art and culture that isn't held under lock & key. Authors create derivative works. And small publishers and broadcasters generate new markets based on such products.

During the writing of the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked together to strike a balance: how would they promote innovation in the sciences and the arts without losing the benefits of the public domain? They came up with an idea: granting copyrights (defined as exclusive rights to a creation) for a limited time. In this way, financial incentive is given to authors, but the public domain continues to be replenished as copyrights expire. Although they didn't agree to use the term "copyright" until after the Constitution had been written, the fruit of their initial discussions became the basis for Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

The obvious next question is, so what?

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