Re: Copyright question

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Stefan Reich <stefan.reich.maker.of.eye@googlemail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Rob Kendrick <rjek@rjek.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 05:06:10PM +0200, Stefan Reich wrote:
>>> > Wrong. 1-clause BSD/ISC is the easiest. Public Domain is a very fuzzy idea.
>>>
>>> Huh? Fuzzy? It means: Do what you want, I allow anything. Clearest and
>>> sharpest statement ever.
>>
>> No, that's not what public domain means.
>
>>From Wikipedia:
>
> "Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by
> intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property
> rights have expired, or if the intellectual property rights are
> forfeited."
>
> Is that not the same thing? I'm not sure what you're doing here. Are
> you deliberately trying to be confusing...?

_Works_ can become public domain, physical _copies_ don't become unowned
or unlicensed.  Licensing, including BSD licensing, is something
connected with the acquisition of concrete copies and the governing
transactions.

I can give you three copies of the same work, all licensed differently.
But I can't let one of those copies be "Public Domain" since that is not
a property of the licensing, but of the work.  When copyright expires,
all copies' contents (but not their physical possession) move into the
public domain.

To have something in the public domain, you can't _license_ it as public
domain (licensing pertains to individual copies), but need to _register_
it as such.  But copyright _registration_ is not standardized
internationally.

-- 
David Kastrup