The depicted text is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain because it is not a “literary work” or other protected type in sense of the local copyright law. Facts, data, and unoriginal information which is common property without sufficiently creative authorship in a general typeface or basic handwriting, and simple geometric shapes are not protected by copyright. This tag does not generally apply to all images of texts. Particular countries can have different legal definition of the “literary work” as the subject of copyright and different courts' interpretation practices. Some countries protect almost every written work, while other countries protect distinctively artistic or scientific texts and databases only. Extent of creativeness, function and length of the text can be relevant. The copyright protection can be limited to the literary form – the included information itself can be excluded from protection.

This tag is designed for use where there may be a need to assert that any enhancements (eg brightness, contrast, colour-matching, sharpening) are in themselves insufficiently creative to generate a new copyright. It can be used where it is unknown whether any enhancements have been made, as well as when the enhancements are clear but insufficient. For known raw unenhanced scans you can use an appropriate {{PD-old}} tag instead. For usage, see Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.