Are old yearbooks public domain?

People often assume that anything old is free to copy. For yearbooks the answer depends on the year of publication, and it changes every January 1. This guide sets out the rules as they apply to a United States yearbook, and what we do about them on this site. It is a plain-language summary, not legal advice.

The short answer

Published in 1930 or earlier: public domain in the United States. Copyright lasts 95 years from publication for works of this period, so books published in 1930 entered the public domain on 1 January 2026, and 1931 books follow on 1 January 2027.
Published 1931 to 1963: it depends. These books were protected only if they carried a proper copyright notice, and for 28 years only unless the owner filed a renewal. Many school yearbooks were never renewed, but each book has to be checked.
Published 1964 to 1977: renewal was automatic, so assume the full 95-year term unless the book had no notice.
Published 1978 or later: assume protected.

Cornell University Library keeps a one-page chart of these rules: Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States.

What "notice" and "renewal" mean

Before 1978, a published work had to carry a copyright notice (the word "Copyright" or the symbol, a year and an owner) or it fell into the public domain. Many yearbooks printed a notice on the title page or the back of it. A work with a notice and published between 1927 and 1963 had to be renewed in its 28th year to be protected for the remainder of the term. Searchable records exist: the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database covers books renewed from 1923 to 1963, and the Catalog of Copyright Entries scans on the Internet Archive list the original registrations.

Three things the public domain does not cover

Individual photographs and artwork. A yearbook is a collective work. A studio may have owned the portraits, or a student the drawings, and the rules above apply to those parts separately. For books from 1930 or earlier this rarely matters, because the portraits are old too.
Access rules are not copyright. A library may limit a scan to "borrow only" for reasons of its own. A restricted scan can still be of a public-domain book, and an open scan can still be of a protected one.
Privacy and publicity law. Copyright says nothing about the person in the photograph. Several states let a living person object to the commercial use of their name or picture. This is the main reason we choose which years to publish.

What we do on this site

We publish named portraits from yearbooks of 1945 and earlier. For books from 1930 or earlier we rely on the public-domain rule above. For 1931 to 1945 we have not run a renewal check on each book, so those pages say only "Published [year]" and we make no claim that they are in the public domain. We take down any page on request. How to ask is on our corrections and removal page. Everyone pictured in a book of 1930 or earlier was born long ago, but a classmate or family member may still object, and we treat that as seriously as a legal claim.

If you want to reuse a scan

Find the year of publication on the title page, not the year of the class. A "Class of 1930" book is usually published in 1930, but the first volume of a series can be older than the school's later books.
For 1930 or earlier, you can copy, post and print the pages. Credit the library that scanned it as courtesy.
For 1931 to 1963, search the renewal database for the title and publisher before you post a whole book. A short excerpt for commentary is a different question, and fair use may apply.
For anything later, write to the school or publisher for permission, or link to the library's copy instead of copying it.

Looking for a book, rather than rules? Start with how to find old yearbooks online.

Last checked 20 October 2026.