free content

Free content, or open content, is content that is not protected by copyright and may be used free of charge. Generally, content is subject to copyright. However, if the author, writer, photographer, interpreter or designer releases the protected content, then it can be used generally, as well as if licenses or usage rights have expired and no legal protection periods are affected.

In this respect, free content must be viewed from a legal perspective and forms a supplement to copyright-protected content. Depending on the degree of freedom, the author or owner must be named when using free content, and changes may not be made, or only to a limited extent, or after consultation with the author. Examples of free content are Wikipedia, whose works are subject to the GNU General Public License( GNU-GPL), and Flickr, which offers copyright-free image material.

The use and restrictions are similar to those of freeware or open source software, on which the free content model is based.