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- Your own work: If you created an entirely original work, you should release it under one of the free cases below.
- Public domain: Public domain works have no copyright restrictions at all, so they are free. Because Wikipedia's servers are located in the United States, U.S. copyright law is used to determine if a work is free content for Wikipedia. (It may still be copyrighted in other countries.) Works are in the public domain if they meet one of these conditions:
- Copyright expired: Very old works are in the public domain. Just how old depends on different factors (detailed at Wikipedia's page on public domain).
- Explicitly released: Some people want to "donate" their work by releasing it into the public domain. This can be a simple statement like, "This is in the public domain," or a more formal declaration, such as CC0. Wikipedia uses a lot of work published the United States federal government because it has been explicitly released into the public domain.
- Not eligible for copyright: A work usually has to be original or creative enough to be copyrighted. Simple text and shapes are usually not considered original enough for copyright.
- Some Creative Commons licenses: CC licenses allow others to use the work under conditions given by the creator. Only Attribution ("CC-BY") and Attribution-ShareAlike ("CC-BY-SA") licenses are free.
- Free and open-source software: Screenshots of software released under free licenses are free.
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