Wouter,

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 17:10:17 +0100, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

> > I think you release the Copyright to the PD not the license. I'm
> > not sure how the rules of licensing apply to PD software.
> 
> As far as I remember from my Law subjects when you publish some work you
> have the copyright. You can't even avoid that.

Yes, that's my understanding too - you can't "Copyright" something, it has copyright intrinsically as soon as 
it's created (it doesn't even have to be published).

Licences aren't necessarily a part of copyright at all.

> Starting from there: you
> have the copyright, so you can grant what you want to whom you want to
> grant it. When you grant everything to everyone that has the same effect
> as if the copyright was already expired, which is what is referred to as
> PD.

Yes, you have the copyright, and you can do with it as you see fit, including giving away all your rights.
 
> But PD means realy free (as in free beer), including the right to use it
> in a commercial product and make $$ of it without even saying 'thanks'
> to the original author.

Yes, when something is "placed in the Public Domain" it means that anyone can do anything with it, including 
using it commercially without reference to the originator.  I can make a copy of a picture of a bison on a 
cave wall without permission from Ug of the Cave, because even if it had existed, his copyright in it expired 
a long time ago, and PD is just like that.  But you can't say "I place this in the Public Domain as long as 
anyone uses it credits me as the creator" - PD is "without emcumbrance" - if you want to impose conditions it 
isn't PD.

If you want to do anything less than placing something in the Public Domain, then you need to devise a 
licence, which is a contract between you and the user, and to which they have to agree before they do 
something covered by your copyright.  But licences are a convenient shortcut to contract negotiations, they 
aren't an intrinsic part of copyright - nobody can do *anything* with your work unless you allow it, and you 
don't have to do so.  There is no "use it or lose it" aspect to copyright, the way there is with patents.

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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