Alphax wrote:
Since I seem to kill every thread I post to, I'll
end this one.
That's a bloody arrogant attitude.
I used {{MultiLicenseMinorPD}} until about 2 days ago,
when I say the
following on it's talk page:
Because it's actually legally impossible to
grant one's own works
into the public domain in the U.S. and U.K., and this creates serious
potential legal problems, I will deprecate this tag if there is no
dissent for 4 days. Please see [[Wikipedia:You can't grant your work
into the public domain]] for a full explanation along with some
authoritative sources, including the U.S. Copyright Office. I have
created the tags {{TextLicenseMinorFreeUse}}, which reflects the
intent of this template. [[User:Dcoetzee|Deco]] 03:34, 8 Apr 2005
(UTC)
As I read it (IANAL), you can't place your work into the public domain
because:
Quoting yourself as an authority is a nice trick if you can get away
with it.
Your statement that it is impossible to grant one's works into the
public domain is patently false. Copyright is an intellectual property
right, and it is fundamental to property rights that the owner have the
right to dispose of his property in whatever manner he sees fit.
I looked at the page which you mentioned and the only thing that
purports to be from the copyright office is a single unverifiable
sentence from a letter received by User:Dcoetzee. It is completely out
of contest. For that sentence to be credible one would need to see the
entire letter, as well as the letter from the user showing the questions
that he asked.
>Any work receives copyright by default and
copyright law generally
>doesn't provide any special means to "abandon" copyright so that a
>work can enter the public domain
>
While it's true that a work receives a copyright by default as a
requirement of the Berne Convention, the absence of "special means is
not a barrier to putting a work into the public domain.
>Some claim that under many jurisdictions, a
statement absolving a
>copyright or "granting" a work into the public domain has no legal
>effect whatsoever, and that the owner still retains all rights to the
>work not otherwise released. This person would then have the legal
>right to prosecute people who use the work under the false impression
>that it was in the public domain. It is certainly true that under
>some jurisdictions, it is impossible to release moral rights, though
>that is not the case in the United States.
>
Moral rights are another matter, and I realize that they are not a part
of the US law on this. For the moment let's stick to US law. Once the
situation there is clear it will be easier to consider the matter in the
light of the law in other countries.
Please do one of two things:
1. Cite the section of US statute law which explicitly denies the
right to abandon all one's rights in a work, or
2. Cite a judicial decision which has clearly denied a person's
right to abandon his copyright.
In the absence of this I would conclude that you don't know what you're
talking about.
*However*, you /can/ release things under a
free-for-any-use licence,
like {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}, {{NoRightsReserved}}, {{cc-sa}}, etc.
These are alternative ways of doing things.
(Hopes flame war will end now)
:-D
Ec