Why?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Rousskov (rousskov at measurement-factory.com):

> The [U.S.] law is based on prior cases and/or changing interpretation,
> so nothing can be 100% clear. However, Creative Commons, O'Reilly, and
> other folks seem to know a sufficiently good solution. For example,
> 
> 	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

I have an inquiry (of long standing) in to Creative Commons about that,
as to whether that was something put together by the webmaster or
created by an attorney.  There seems to be some confusion within the
organisation on the matter.  Since I live a few miles from where Prof.
Lessig works, I may eventually get the opportunity to ask him directly,
but the opportunity hasn't yet arisen.

In any event, note that the page doesn't (even at that) assert that such
a declaration is legally effective.

> but, again, this solution has probably never been tested in courts,
> and even it has been, it does not guarantee you anything. The same is
> true for any license, of course.

GPLv2 was glancingly tested in the MySQL AB v. Progress Software case, 
which went as far as preliminary rulings before being settled.

It should be pointed out that a "public domain declaration" would _not_
be a licence, but rather an attempt to nullify copyright title (which 
may or may not work, and may have differing results depending on
jurisdiction).

-- 
Cheers,
Rick Moen                      Linux for Intel:  Party like it's 2037!
rick at linuxmafia.com
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