Creative Commons announces the "Public Domain Mark" | Hacker News Reader

Creative Commons announces the "Public Domain Mark"

creativecommons.org

52 pointsdotBen19 comments

If it becomes popular enough, maybe in ten years it will have a unicode code point, and will be found in common fonts ;)

c⃠ (c⃠) is supposed to work, but I don't think any browsers support the combining marks yet. (http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unicode.o...)

c⃠

It "works" in Chromium, but selecting the text is borked, and so is navigating this text field after I pasted it..

c⃠ Works in FF 3.6.

The digraph mark N© has been in use for many years by the groups The Tape-beatles and Negativland, for two examples. It was devised by the British artist Mark Pawson in the late 1980s. (I'm not saying anything against the new mark, just offering this up because it might be interesting to some.)

This is just great! I hope Flickr will adopt it immediately. Right now you can not choose "public domain" as a default option for your Flickr account. So we do not have any public domain pictures from there. Attribution is ok, but what if you want to modify a picture or make a collage? Making a clear attribution for Flickr is not always easy without adding clutter to your UI.

Looking forward for huge increase in public domain pictures :)

Mine is up and running - thanks! http://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com

Shouldn't you be using CC0[1]? Your blog posts are automatically covered by copyright when they are created. I think the Public Domain Mark is only for works already in the public domain.

However, I am not entirely sure about this, so clarification would be great.

[1]:http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/

I'm a big supporter of the Creative Commons project, but this is a good example of the problems that CreativeCommons face.

Without wishing to be narky, your use of this mark is inaccurate. Your material is not in the public domain, it is copyrighted to you. You should instead be using CC0, which is the appropriate mark for works still in copyright where the author wishes to disclaim all rights.

(And note that some part of copyright in major jurisdictions cannot be waived - look up moral rights)

This is why this new Mark will be fabulous for widely disseminated works for use in a low value environment. For a work to be properly usable in high value environments, such as for a film script, the players will still need to do expensive due dilligence. As the page for the public domain mark states, 'The work may not be free of known copyright restrictions'.

This isn't a criticism of the CC efforts, just a description of the problems created by the mess intellectual property is currently in.

How do you know his material is not in the public domain? By using this mark isn't he relinquishing copyright?

You are just assuming he wants copyright, but it seems to me he doesn't.

His material is about javascript! It is not an official US government document and he is living person who claims authorship. It is therefore not in the public domain and shouldn't be marked with a Public Domain Mark.

He is not relinquishing copyright by using this mark, he is making a statement that he believes that no copyright attaches to the material. Two different things.

I'm not assuming that he wants copyright - he gets copyright whether he wants it or not. I'm assuming that he wants to licence his material as freely as possible. The correct way to do that is to licence his material under the CC0 or CC-BY licence.

No, he is perfectly within his rights to relinquishing/disclaim copyright on his works.

In some countries that is not possible, but it is in the US.

I don't see where you are getting "no copyright attaches to the material" - are you trying to say you think he doesn't believe in copyright?

You are really assuming a whole lot here. I'm going with the simple definition: If I place a symbol on my works that marks them as "public domain", I abandoned my copyright.

It's the same as putting the word "free" on a couch you don't want.

Yes, it is possible that a court would construe the action of placing this public domain mark on a work as evidence of an intent to freely and irrevocably licence the work to everyone without restrictions. I wouldn't advise a client to rely on it where money was at stake.

However the term 'public domain' refers to works where the copyright has expired or where the work did not meet the requirements to attract copyright to begin with.

This is the meaning used by the CC. They say in TFA that "The Public Domain Mark in its current form is intended for use with works that are free of known copyright around the world, primarily old works that are beyond the reach of copyright in all jurisdictions."

His website is not in the public domain in this (legal) sense.

I'm assuming exactly the same as you - that he wants to make his website as free as possible. The way for him to do this is to put his website under CC0 or CC-BY.

That's not the only meaning of "public domain". You can also do it actively: http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html

The reason CC0 exists is that placing something in the public domain is not possible in all countries.

From http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/

CC0

Use this universal tool if you are a holder of copyright or database rights, and you wish to waive all your interests in your work worldwide.

Public Domain Mark

Use this tool if you have identified a work that is free of known copyright restrictions. Creative Commons does not recommend this tool for works that are restricted by copyright laws in one or more jurisdictions.

Also, the respective symbols/glyphs, for those who didn't recognize them on the ur-parent's page:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

http://creativecommons.org/images/deed/nolaw.png

and

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

http://creativecommons.org/images/deed/noc.png

It might have helped the article to have, you know, included an image of the mark. Just a thought.

It would be cool if governments could acknowledge this mark so it can be used in earnest.

According to its website, Europeana is sponsored by the European Commission which is an arm of the European Union. I'd say that is a hefty acknowledgement from a "government" (or, rather, a supernational organization).

But, yeah, I would love to see the LoC adopt this mark for its digital collection. It'd increase visibility and give the mark an air of legitimacy for the United States.

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