Creative Commons and public domain declarations

[Rick Moen]

News about impending changes to the CC "public domain declaration" 
page, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ .  

I've snipped a brief part of my exchange with Prof. Lessig
that concerned his challenge-response e-mail checker, and also
snipped redundant quoted text.




 From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: lessig at pobox.com
 Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:34:45 -0700
 Subject: Query: Should Creative Commons encourage "public domain declarations"?
 X-Mas: Bah humbug.

Apologies for length.  The gist of what follows (from OSI's mailing list
for proposed software licences) is the same point you made last night at
Stanford about "public domain declarations" -- and Creative Commons's
encouragement of same, nonetheless.

Could you get CC to at least add a disclaimer?

  [snip post to license-discuss at opensource.org about lingering
  questions concerning the legal effect of public domain declarations,
  resulting from copyright law changes to implement the Berne Convention.]




 From: Lawrence Lessig <lessig at pobox.com>
 To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:37:19 -0700
 Subject: Re: Query: Should Creative Commons encourage "public domain declarations"?
 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619)

Actually, it's a bit more complicated.  What I said was it wasn't clear
you could make a public domain dedication.  But CC has taken lots of
steps to frame the dedication in as complete and reliable way as
possible.  We know of no test cases, and we'd be happy to see a test
case.  But so long as we have a good faith believe that you can dedicate
to the public domain, we've offered this license.  We certainly don't
believe you can dedicate merely by saying you do.  But our process does
more than that.




 From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: Lawrence Lessig <lessig at pobox.com>
 Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 22:50:01 -0700
 Subject: Re: Query: Should Creative Commons encourage "public domain declarations"?
 X-Mas: Bah humbug.

Hi, Prof. Lessig.  Thanks for the correction.  (I had an account of what
you said at second hand, but any inaccuracy may well be mine.)  Thanks
also for your time.

I wonder if CC would consider at least warning people of potential legal
issues.  (And different results might pertain in different jurisdictions, 
even though CC's declaration aims to be under US law, right?)  

Anyhow, thank you for all your good work and exemplary citizenship.
(I'm sure your have more important things to do than argue with open
source people.  <grin>  )




 From: Lawrence Lessig <lessig at pobox.com>
 To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 Cc: Glenn Brown <glenn at creativecommons.org>
 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 17:38:35 -0400
 Subject: Re: Query: Should Creative Commons encourage "public domain declarations"?
 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619)

We should make some note.  I'll pass it by mgmt.




 From: Glenn Otis Brown <glenn at creativecommons.org>
 To: Lawrence Lessig <lessig at pobox.com>
 Cc: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:44:46 -0700
 Subject: Re: Query: Should Creative Commons encourage "public domain declarations"?                                                                 
 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.613)
                                                                                
Good point, Rick.  We have to make another change to that section of our 
site, so I'll take this into consideration, too.