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

[Chris Travers]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>wrote:

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> Hi Ben,****
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> It would be difficult for Linus Torvalds to complain about porn when he
> intentionally released an operating system that is so ideally suited for
> the delivery of porn. It would be like Michelangelo complaining because
> derivatives of his statue of David revealed some private parts.****
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IANAL, but the intent of moral rights is to provide for the author's
reputation for his or her work and to ensure that the author maintains some
control over how the image of the work is maintained.  For a practical tool
this strikes me as somewhat of a mismatch just like protecting software as
expression is a bit of a mismatch.

For example, I don't know how Linus's moral rights would be interfered with
if nobody knew that a specific porn site was being hosted on a service
using the Linux kernel, although he'd seem to have a right to ask them to
display a "powered by Linux" logo or refuse to let them use such a logo.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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