Creative Commons and public domain declarations

[Alex Rousskov]

Thanks for sharing this! Your original "second-hand" rendering of 
Lawrence Lessig's comments got me a little worried. I am glad that 
Lawrence Lessig's actual position on public domain matches CC actions 
and my understanding.

Adding a word of caution to CC pages dedicated to public domain (or 
any contraversial legal document) is a good idea, of course.

Alex.


On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Rick Moen wrote:

> 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.
>
>