[License-review] [License-discuss] CC0 incompliant with OSD on patents, [was: MXM compared to CC0 ]

[Lawrence Rosen]

[paring the distribution list]

Thank you, Alexander, for a clear rejoinder to my essay arguing that the
public domain is not effective. The case you referenced in your email,
Hampton v. Paramount Pictures, 279 F.2d 100 (9th Cir. Cal. 1960), stands for
the proposition that, at least in the Ninth Circuit, a person can indeed
abandon his copyrights (counter to what I wrote in my article) -- but it
takes the equivalent of a manifest license to do so. :-)

   Rights gained under the Copyright Law, 17 U.S.C.A. 1 et seq., 
   may be abandoned. Abandonment of such rights, however, must be 
   manifested by some overt act indicative of a purpose to surrender 
   the rights and allow the public to copy. National Comics 
   Publications v. Fawcett Publications, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 594, 598.

In the Hampton v. Paramount case, by the way, the court concluded that
Paramount had *not* abandoned its copyright despite numerous writings
brought into evidence. Even the equitable doctrines of estoppel and laches
were rejected by the court.

For the record, I have already voted +1 to approve the CC0 public domain
dedication and fallback license as OSD compliant. I admit that I have argued
for years against the "public domain" as an open source license, but in
retrospect, considering the minimal risk to developers and users relying on
such software and the evident popularity of that "license", I changed my
mind. One can't stand in the way of a fire hose of free public domain
software, even if it doesn't come with a better FOSS license that I trust
more.

/Larry


> -----Original Message-----
> From: license-review-bounces at opensource.org [mailto:license-review-
> bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Alexander Terekhov
> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 1:41 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org; OSI License Review; OSI Board
> Subject: Re: [License-review] [License-discuss] CC0 incompliant with
> OSD on patents, [was: MXM compared to CC0 ]
<snip>