On 09/02/07, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but that does fly right in the face of existing laws - searches on both Wikipedia and Google tell me that legal abandonment of copyright only occurs when one explicitly confers material to the public domain. If you don't hear anything from the copyright holder in a reasonable term, that can be implicitly an acquiescence to your usage of the material. It does not remove any rights they have against others.
FWIW, UK copyright law recognises a defence of acquiescence, but you need to show that the other party was *aware* of it as well as taking no steps to stop it. This dates from 1906, but a ruling was made as recently as 1996 - there, the copyright holder became aware in early 1993 that use beyond the license was being made of its material, and the judge held that a defence of acquiescence could be made out from at least the middle of that year.
(I am unsure what that translated to in practice - I'm trying to dig up the reports, but suspect it was something along the lines of "you can only sue for the first couple of months of infringing use")
It's a defence (like fair-use) for infringement, though, *not* a release. And, of course, simply making your infringement public is not the same thing as them knowing about it - you'd have to somehow prove they were aware.