Public Domain Registry

Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency and
Creative Commons Canada, in partnership with Creative Commons Corporation in the US, today announced the development of a Canadian public domain registry. The ground-breaking project – the most comprehensive of its kind in Canada – will create an online, globally searchable catalogue of published works that are in the Canadian public domain.
Access Copyright news release

The first stage of the project will produce a registry of  Canadian works, the second a  registry of works from elsewhere. We are told (without any sense of irony) that the registry will  be freely accessible to the public.  Though  much of the data is going to be drawn from Access Copyright’s database, some will come from the public via Wikipedia’s software, which is being contributed to the prooject.