[PD-dev] Political Impropriety

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Tue Jan 3 16:45:11 CET 2006


On Mon, 2 Jan 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2006, at 2:30 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> > 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.
> I don't know about Canada, but in the U.S., copyright just became default
> then.  But you can still put stuff in the public domain, you just have to do
> so explicitly, where as before new works were automatically public domain
> unless you explicitly declared and registered the copyright.

Hmm, possible, but then why don't people do it? Why do people use the 
MITX11 license or the SIBSD license instead of just public domain?

On Mon, 2 Jan 2006, Marc Lavallée wrote:

> 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."

What's the advantage of using unclear laws instead of clear free licenses
such as MITX11 and SIBSD ? I mention those two as examples because they 
are closest to public domain and it seems that their purpose is to 
simulate public domain but in a legally clearer way. (GPL/LGPL has 
additional goals that are less close to public domain).

 _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada




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