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Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

There is significant debate as to whether public domain even exists except through copyright expiry. Indeed, the text of Creative Commons's "CC0" pseudo-public-domain declaration largely consists of admissions of this.

Why not use a public license like CC0 or CC? It'll accomplish the same thing and is widely recognized as valid.

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Why do you mention the notion of expiration? Wouldn't that apply instead to old (say, pre-1923) works?

If anything, I believe the author's very right of placing a (recent) work in the public domain is what is debated. Which... to me is beyond unfair and absurd, but may very well be "the law"...

An interesting example appears in SQLite's copyright page [1]. They acknowledge that, even though the code has been placed in the public domain, some legal teams may advise their companies to purchase a license.

[1] http://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html

> An interesting example appears in SQLite's copyright page [1]. They acknowledge that, even though the code has been placed in the public domain, some legal teams may advise their companies to purchase a license.

This is very interesting. Can someone here please elaborate on it?

Although SQLite is supposed to be in the public domain, some jurisdictions don't recognize public domain, or some corporations might have legal teams that get very uncomfortable about the lack of an explicit license. In that case, you can pay $1,000 for a piece of paper that says you have the right to use SQLite. It keeps lawyers happy.

The legal trouble with public domain is the question "how did it get here?" In the case of expiry, that's simple: you can no longer assert control over the work- it's too old. In the case of a deliberate admission of release of copyright, how do you defend that? If, as a lame example, I take something that is public domain and claim it as my own work, how do you demonstrate that it's not? Because I'm not the original author? But that means that the author is still exerting some sort of implicit right, even if they don't pursue it themselves. This isn't a natural way of thinking about ownership, but it is a legal problem and so some organisations shy away from hard PD.

The fact that you are not the original author has nothing to do with the author exerting any control, it is a question of fact. Beethoven no longer exerts any control over the Moonlight Sonata and yet it is a fact that he wrote it and not you. Why should it be any different for a more recent work released to the public domain by the author?

See also the "Unlicense" for something explicitly designed for source code: http://unlicense.org/. I find this preferable to something like the MIT license because it doesn't include the annoying requirement to include a copy of the license with the software, which is especially problematic for e.g. javascript libraries.

My solution when I want to do PD for source code is to include a small statement referencing CC0, like this:

    programname: Brief description of program
    
    Written by My Name <my@email>, 2013
    
    This software and associated documentation files (the "Software") is
    released under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication, version 1.0, as
    published by Creative Commons. To the extent possible under law, the
    author(s) have dedicated all copyright and related and neighboring
    rights to the Software to the public domain worldwide. The Software is
    distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.

    If you did not receive a copy of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication
    along with the Software, see
    <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>

I trust the CC0 dedication more than other options; it seems very carefully written.

I would never use your code.

Even if this crazy bit of non-license were interpreted as a license, all you are doing is claiming that you are releasing copyright rights. You are not releasing patent rights. So by using your code, I'm opening myself up to you suing me for patent violation. Furthermore, "to the extent permitted by law" could mean, depending on the jurisdiction, as "not". You've put the onus on me to determine whether your goofy pseudolicense is legal or not.

I think CC0 is very wrong for code. I don't understand why people are so against a decent academic license in lieu of a murky public domain declaration of questionable legality and no patent release.

That's where you need to read the actual CC0, not just my referral to it. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

It's carefully written to address your concern about "to the extent permitted by law", including a public license fallback:

> 3. Public License Fallback. Should any part of the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted taking into account Affirmer's express Statement of Purpose. In addition, to the extent the Waiver is so judged Affirmer hereby grants to each affected person a royalty-free, non transferable, non sublicensable, non exclusive, irrevocable and unconditional license to exercise Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights in the Work (i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions), (iii) in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes (the "License").

tl;dr: It degrades to the MIT license but without the attribution requirement.

True, there is no patent license, but neither the MIT or BSD licenses nor the GPL before v3 have a patent grant either. You'd be slagging off projects from jQuery to Linux (GPLv2) to LLVM if you demand an explicit patent grant for everything you use.

I do find it worrisome that there'd be this much fear of the CC0 dedication, even if unfounded. Could my statement be rewritten to make it more clear?

> I don't understand why people are so against a decent academic license in lieu of a murky public domain declaration of questionable legality and no patent release.

Principle. I'm one of those nutters that hates all form of copyright becuase blah blah blah, information purity, I'll skip the lecture, though. We just don't want information we create to be distributed under terms at all, that it could just out there to be used as people will without needing to worry about the consumption of information the same way they have no concern using or consuming a hamburger and plate.

>I don't understand why people are so against a decent academic license in lieu of a murky public domain declaration of questionable legality and no patent release.

Your problem is with software patents. A dubious at best, outright unethical at worst practice that has hampered creative development in the last decades. A trend that would have made the development of a myriad of platforms from editors, languages and complete operating systems impossible in the past. It's misdirected frustration.

Case in point: Your refusal to use code based on its own merits.

>Furthermore, "to the extent permitted by law" could mean, depending on the jurisdiction, as "not"

Surely every license is, by definition, "to the extent permitted by law"? No court will ever interpret a license to be valid beyond the extent permitted by law.

Some licenses may stop short of the extent permitted by law, e.g. by putting conditions on use.

The ISC license is only 8 lines, including the no warranty clause. Without the no-warranty clause it's a single sentence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license

Just because people debate it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. See http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html for example.

There is significant debate as to whether public domain even exists except through copyright expiry.

Such serious claim requires some serious citation. It is certainly not true as stated, since all original works produced by the government are in the public domain regardless of when they were created (e.g., NASA images and many US coins designs.) The first Google result for [public domain existence debate] is your comment. I haven't come across any evidence that any such debate exists, and plenty of sources to support the fact of the existence of public domain (some given by others in this thread.)

Can you elaborate on what it means if public domain doesn't exist? In other words, what are the implications of doing it his way vs using that license?

As I see it, he's trying to remove himself from the concept of copyright entirely, so adding a license is against the entire point. Especially when that license effectively says there is no license, that seems like a caricature of exactly what he doesn't like.

I share a similar view, it feels very "clean" and refreshing. Put the content out there, let people use it how they want, end of story. Obviously, though, it's not practical for all use cases currently.

One reason is that those "public licenses" are still based on the notion that the creator of digital content inherently has some sort of exclusive authority over that content, which some content creators dislike.

Or just include a text copy of this blogpost. It's as clear as a bell explaining all the rights he's not reserving.

Because "clear as a bell" is not a legally recognized concept.

Why do you say that?

I think the biggest problem is definitions. Keep in mind that copyright means very different things internationally. Let's compare the CC0 text to this one. Note that I'm not a lawyer, and this is mostly conjecture, but pulled from a reasonable amount of reading I've done on the subject.

See: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Part 1: This talks about what copyright means. Given there is no universal definition, this clarifies exactly what is being given away.

Part 2: This is worth quoting.

. To the greatest extent permitted by, but not in contravention of, applicable law, Affirmer hereby overtly, fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally waives, abandons, and surrenders all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights and associated claims and causes of action, whether now known or unknown (including existing as well as future claims and causes of action), in the Work (i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions), (iii) in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes (the "Waiver").

Notice how this is unambiguous, and takes into account many different cases. Compare that the the blog post:

There is no need to email me for permission — use my content however you want! Email it, share it, reprint it with or without credit. Change it around, put in a bunch of swear words and attribute them to me. It’s OK.

First of all, what does use mean? Does that mean I can share it with others, and they have the same right to it? And is he allowed to take it back?

What happens if he decides he does not want to have people giving away his books anymore? He's not said that he can't change it in the future. CC0 explicitly says it last for as long as legally permissible.

Furthermore, what about in countries like Germany, where you can't actually give up your copyright? CC0 has a fallback (part 3) that essentially says "if I can't give up my rights to this, this is the license I am releasing it under", then provides a license with no restrictions.

I've been packaging software for Debian recently, and dealing with copyright stuff. When you start distributing data internationally for a large organization, you really want to make sure all of your ducks are in a row.

More a fan of the WTFPL myself.

A random CC0 publication doesn't get HN publicity

I like to think HN publicity comes because the publication was interesting in its own right; not just because of the license.

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