[License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?

[Karl Fogel]

Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com> writes:
>Based on http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225 and similar
>articles, I'd long believed that a declaration that you were
>abandoning copyright was a meaningless farce.
>
>Then by accident today I ran across http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
>which claims the opposite, and cites actual court decisions as
>evidence.
>
>Is D. J. Bernstein out of his depth here, or does he have a valid point?

I realize this thread has already developed, but FWIW:

  http://opensource.org/faq#public-domain