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That's not exactly true. American "copyright" is not quite the French "droit d'auteur", which, if I'm not mistaken, is what you're mentioning. And then, even the "droits d'auteur" are broken down in the patrimonial rights and the creation attribution—you can cede your patrimonial rights (rights to profit from the picture), but never the creation attribution: the picture will always be your creation.

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> American "copyright" is not quite the French "droit d'auteur", which, if I'm not mistaken, is what you're mentioning.

Yes.

> And then, even the "droits d'auteur" are broken down in the patrimonial rights and the creation attribution—you can cede your patrimonial rights (rights to profit from the picture), but never the creation attribution: the picture will always be your creation.

Sure, but the fact remains that, under french IP laws, it is legally impossible to put something in the public domain yourself, as the creator of that thing.

And checking SQLite's "copyright" page (which made me realize this nit of french IP law) there seem to be places where the very concept of "public domain" does not exist.

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