Dec. 17, 2010
12:32 p.m.
Using Google ngram tool http://ngrams.googlelabs.com I produced this graph of the comparative use of "commons" and public domain" in Google's digitized books in English from between 1920 and 2000. Two points of notice : - The huge surge of use of the word commons in the 1930s - The fact that since 1985 use of both terms grows in parallel (with a slight advantage for commons). Philippe Aigrain