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Sincerely curious -- why is that? I was under the impression that public domain was well-established & well-understood, legally…?
by robinsloan 10y ago
Sincerely curious -- why is that? I was under the impression that public domain was well-established & well-understood, legally…?
- detaro 10y agoIn many countries you can not "release" works as public domain. E.g. here in Germany, a work can become public domain by expiring copyright, but creators have rights that can not be removed (not even voluntarily) before that. (In such countries, a court might recognize the intent behind a claim of public domain from a country where it is possible, but that requires interpretation of the law of the country the creator is from. And it's likely not an option for locals, since the concept does not exist in local law) Creative Commons created the CC0 license to work around this: it clearly lays out that a work is intended to be released as public domain, and failing that, all possible rights are granted and the creator doesn't intend to limit them in any way with his remaining ones. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
- robinsloan 10y agoThat is exactly what I was curious to know -- thanks!
- sidarape 10y ago> creators have rights that can not be removed (not even voluntarily) before that. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of licenses? The principle of a license is exactly giving up rights on copyrighted work.
- pgeorgi 10y agoThe purpose of work contracts doesn't rule out any laws that prevent you from signing up as a slave... (the comparison is appropriate because that non-revocable subset of rights in Germany's Urheberrecht - and other European countries and probably elsewhere - is based on a notion of human rights)