The Public Domain and Internet Marketing
Internet Marketers and Webmasters Should Tap into the Public Domain
May 19, 2009
When discussing the public domain, the first question new Internet marketers often ask is if it will ever be used up. Granted, it is limited and it will be used more and more as people understand its potential in regards to online businesses, yet there is so much contained within the public domain that there’s no chance that it will run out of material anytime in the foreseeable future. In addition, more work is being added to it every day.
What's in the Public Domain
The public domain contains a treasure trove of goodies that can be used by the Internet marketer. However, many marketers and webmasters don’t understand its true potential. They think that it just contains books, recipes, and the like. The truth is it is very vast and diverse. In addition to books, it also contains photos, music, software, art, movies, and more.
The good news is that since public domain works cannot be ‘used up’ like regular resources and there are no copyright violations to worry about, there is virtually nothing stopping Internet marketers and Webmasters from using all of these resources for their personal businesses. In other words, it's a very powerful resource that is open to everyone. The key is learning how to use it and how to package it in a way that is unique.
How to Use Public Domain Works
There are countless ways to make money online using public domain works. Here are some ideas:
- Re-publish the content- A lot of the information is still relevant today. Books on recipes, public speaking, hobbies, and learning languages all contain knowledge that is applicable to our time. For example, 50 or 60 years hasn’t changed the way you bake a cake. All you need to do is to find the relevant public domain work, re-package it according to your needs, and then create a business model around it.
- Use it as a source of content for your website. Whether you want to start a membership website or just an informational website that earns money through advertising and affiliate revenue, the important thing is that you won’t have to wait for months to create the content- it’s ready for you to use immediately.
- Create a deriviative work- Use work in the public domain to spawn targeted, niche-specific products by creating your own product around it.
- Change the format of the work and create an audio course for a how-to-manual to increase the ‘perceived value’ of the product so you can make more money off the same information.
- Release the product in multiple, complimentary mediums. This is a combination of the above two ideas- You can teach a course using audio CDs, instructional watch-and-learn DVDs and package a learning manual together to make a killer course that is a physical product instead of allowing people to simply download your book. This immediately raises the value of what you’re selling.
This is just the beginning of what can be done with works in the public domain. There are dozens of other examples of using it within a business, either to supplement a business model or to create a new income stream.
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