Please add "Public Domain" to "license" list
Lawrence E. Rosen
lrosen at rosenlaw.com
Fri Mar 14 23:21:43 UTC 2003
You've answered it beautifully. Give this guy a law degree! :-)
/Larry Rosen
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Moen [mailto:rick at linuxmafia.com]
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 10:10 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: Please add "Public Domain" to "license" list
>
>
> Quoting David A. Wheeler (dwheeler at dwheeler.com):
>
> > Hello - I'd like to ask OSI to add "Public Domain" to the
> open source
> > software license list at:
> > http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php
>
> I'm not sure there's reasonable consensus on the legal effect
> of declaring one's copyrighted work to be in the public domain.
>
> In the context of USA Federal law, at least, I've looked in
> vain through 17 USC to find any provision permitting a
> copyrighted work to become public domain before expiry of its
> copyright term.
>
> People have sometimes claimed that caselaw has interpreted
> public-domain declarations as irrevocable licences for gratis
> usage by anyone -- but I haven't seen citations, let alone
> any showing that wide legal precedent exists. Moreover, it
> seems a-priori unlikely that an author could excuse himself
> from any duties that go with copyright ownership, though such
> a declaration: Otherwise, it'd be a dandy way to evade
> product-liability lawsuits.
>
> It seems possible, even, that a public-domain declaration
> might have _no_ legal effect. All told, I don't know if the
> OSI should want to put its stamp on this particular can of worms.
>
> (Disclaimer: IANAL. Fortunately, the above does not contain
> legal assertions, only questions I think are relevant.)
>
> --
> Cheers, "My file
> system's got no nodes!"
> Rick Moen "How does it shell?"
> rick at linuxmafia.com
> --
> license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
>
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