Copyright law is of tremendous importance to librarians, faculty members, scholars, researchers and attorneys. Scholars have often written about the fair use doctrine not only as a defense to copyright infringement hut also about using it affirmatively to support the use of copyrighted works in research, teaching, and law practice without seeking permission from the copyright owner. Less scholarly attention has been focused on the public domain, despite its importance both to users of creative works and to authors and publishers. This essay celebrates the public domain.