Public domain works must be out of copyright in both the United States and in the source country of the work in order to be hosted on the Commons. If the work is not a U.S. work, the file must have an additional copyright tag indicating the copyright status in the source country.

• The Indian Copyright Act applies in India, to works first published in India.
• According to The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 (Chapter V Section 25), Anonymous works, photographs, cinematographic works, sound recordings, government works, and works of corporate authorship or of international organizations enter the public domain 60 years after the date on which they were first published, counted from the beginning of the following calendar year (ie. as of 2017, works published prior to 1 January 1957 are considered public domain). Posthumous works (other than those above) enter the public domain after 60 years from publication date. Any other kind of work enters the public domain 60 years after the author's death. Text of laws, judicial opinions, and other government reports are free from copyright. Photographs created before 1958 are in the public domain 50 years after creation, as per the Copyright Act 1911.