Why we built PICRYL.com, the largest public domain search engine

   Boris Tolkachev, one of the founders of GetArchive.net, Picryl.com

The Problem

The Internet is great for many reasons, including free stuff you can get: news, books, images, music, all the things that feed your creativity and your soul. I am a visual person and love vintage photographs. In 2007, while babysitting and working from home, I bought a large photo frame and started searching for historical images online to play non-stop 24/7. I love this stuff. So I found tens of thousands of astonishing images with planes, rockets, the Moon, cars, tanks, guns, sports, wars, fashion, waterskiing and more.

I’ve learned that I can’t post all those images online if I care about the law. OK. They still play on that obsolete photo frame in my kitchen. Now in 2017, same as in 2007, I can’t legally share those images online.

Wait! May things changed since 2007 – we have image boards, Instagram and sites like Pinterest. But nothing has changed in regards to the copyright law… I wonder how the Pinterest operates in terms of copyright.

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What Will Enter The Public Domain in 2017?

On January 1, every year, we celebrate Public Domain Day, the day when work’s copyright expires, and it enters the public domain. It means that each of them you can freely use (display, modify, print, etc.) without asking permission from the author.

In 2017 the list of the public domain was enriched by the works of thirty notable persons.

We created several collections that now is available on Picryl. Take a look!