[PD-dev] Political Impropriety

[Marc Lavallée]

Le 2 Janvier 2006 17:30, Mathieu Bouchard a écrit :
> AFAIK, since 1978, it is *not* possible to *not* copyright a work. The
> best that can be done is to put a free license on it. The legal
> applicability of all software licenses depends on the validity of the
> copyright. This includes free licenses, which are designed to proclaim
> freedom in a way that the legal system understands.

It's also possible to put a work directly in the Public Domain.
Excerpt from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain#Copyright" :
"It is commonly believed by non-lawyers that it is impossible to put a work 
into the public domain. Although copyright law generally does not provide 
any statutory means to "abandon" copyright so that a work can enter the 
public domain, this does not mean that it is impossible or even difficult, 
only that the law is somewhat unclear."

About 1978, there's a catch. In the U.S., it's only since 1989 that works 
have a default copyright. If you look at the following link, in the section 
"WORKS PUBLISHED IN THE US", works published between 1977 and 1989 without 
a copyright notice and without a subsequent registration are in the public 
domain: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
--
Marc