Library of Congress: Copyright and Primary Sources

If you can see or hear the materials on the Library of Congress website, you may view or listen to them on the site. We are making them available to you for that very purpose.

If you want to use or reuse the materials beyond our website, though, you need to be aware of copyright and other rights restrictions. (Just because we’ve put a work online doesn’t mean that you can freely reuse it.) You need to decide for yourself whether the way you plan to use the materials is allowed under copyright law.

For a few questions that will help you decide, visit this section of the Library’s Understanding Copyright page: