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Wouldn't the government's copyright interest outside of the US be
limited by the Rule of the Shorter Term under the Berne Convention?
And so where the term in the US is "zero," wouldn't it be zero in
those countries that observe the Rule of the Shorter Term?<br>
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Pam<br>
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<div class="moz-signature">Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
PO Box 2492<br>
Raleigh, NC 27602<br>
919-800-8033<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/28/2019 9:34 PM, John Cowan wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 5:33
PM Christopher Sean Morrison via License-discuss <<a
href="mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">license-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div>Yes! Even to say it’s in the public domain is
misleading. It’s not a USC term.</div>
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<div>It's true that "public domain" is not *defined* in 17
U.S.C., but it is *used* there seven times. So turning to a
dictionary, we find this in the American Heritage
Dictionary, 5th edition: "The condition of not being
protected by a patent or copyright and therefore being
available to the public for use without charge", and this in
Merriam Webster Online: "[T]he realm embracing property
rights that belong to the community at large, are
unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to
appropriation by anyone[.]" So the term is well-defined.</div>
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<div>Saying something from the Gov’t is “public domain”
typically just means it went through a public release
process and there's no intention to assert rights.</div>
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<div>No, it means that there is no copyright owner. 17
U.S.C.
§105 says: "Copyright protection under this title is not
available for any work of the
United States Government, but the United States Government
is not precluded
from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by
assignment, bequest,
or otherwise." The term “work of the United States
Government” is defined as "[a] work prepared by an officer
or
employee of the United States Government as part of that
person’s official duties"</div>
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<div>While works of Gov’t employees typically don't have
copyright protection under Title 17 and could easily be
released "into the public domain”, </div>
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<div>They *are* in the public domain (unless they were not
part of the author's official duties).</div>
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<div>that doesn’t mean they have to release it, can
release it,</div>
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<div>If by "release" you mean "publish", you are of course
right. But if by "release" you mean "place in the public
domain", you are wrong, as shown above.</div>
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<div> or that there aren’t other mechanisms for releasing
it NOT “into the public domain.”</div>
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<div>There are no such mechanisms. A copyrighted work can
have its copyright transferred, but a work that is not in
copyright (whether because the copyright has been expired or
forfeited, or was expressly waived by the owner, or never
existed in the first place) cannot be removed from the
public domain except by Act of Congress. This has happened
several times in the past, notably 1893 (restoring copyright
forfeited for lack of certain formalities if reregistered),
1919, 1941 (for the benefit of foreign authors whose
copyrights expired during the war, when they could not renew
them), 1976 (extension to life+50), and 1989 (extension to
life+70), plus a number of private bills in the 19C for the
benefit of specific authors.</div>
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<div>Gov’t regularly distributes software that otherwise
has *no* Title 17 protections to foreign and domestic
recipients, under contractual terms.</div>
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<div>So they may, but if the recipients transfer the software
to third parties, the recipients are in breach but the third
parties are not, for lack of privity and because there is no
in rem right in the nature of copyright. Much the same is
true of classified materials (as opposed to the U.K. where
receiving and further disseminating such materials is
separately criminalized.</div>
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