Free content

Free content, libre content, libre information, or free information is any kind of mind work, such as a work of art, a book, a software program, or any other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work, meaning "works or expressions which can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose"^[1], including, in some cases, commercial purposes. Free content encompasses all works in the public domain and also those copyrighted works whose licenses honor and uphold the definition of free cultural work.

In most countries, the Berne Convention grants copyright holders monopolistic control over their creations by default. Therefore, copyrighted content must be explicitly declared free by the author(s), which is usually accomplished by referencing or including licensing statements from within the work. The right to reuse said work is granted by the author(s) in a license known as a free license, a free distribution license, or an open license, depending on the rights assigned. These freedoms given to users in the reuse of works (that is, the right to freely use, study, modify or distribute these works, possibly also for commercial purposes) are often associated with obligations (to cite the original author, to maintain the original license of the reused content) or restrictions (excluding commercial use, banning certain media) chosen by the author. There is a whole menu of standardized licenses offering varied options that allow authors to choose the type of reuse of their work that they wish to authorize or forbid (for example the so-called Creative Commons license).