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> "Download Comic Neue, free for a limited time"

What does that mean? There's no real license information anywhere.

Yeah, that seems like a terrible "license structure". If he added irrevocable I think it would be sufficient for use, but as is I can't understand how you could currently feel safe using it?

Currently the site says: "No attribution is required, this free version of Comic Neue has been released into the public domain." and links to CC's public domain page at http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ .

An honest question: Isn't it that in some legal systems, an absence of license means public domain?

Most of the world implemented the Berne Convention, which creates a thing called "copyright". In the world of copyright, absence of license means all rights reserved, except for "fair use", "fair dealing" and similar exceptions. In the world outside copyright law everything is in the public domain, no licenses necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

The Berne Convention didn't invent copyright.

I don't think that was ever implied.

Well, you can have copyright without declaring that everything is copyrighted when it is created. A lot of countries had systems like that until they ratified the Berne Convention.

No, it wasn't implied, it was stated outright that the Berne Convention "creates a thing called copyright" (when, in fact, the Berne Convention harmonizes certain provisions of copyright law among those countries who adhere to it.)

While I'm sure there is a legal system somewhere in the world that does that most places have automatic rights for intellectual property, even if you give it away for free. Trying to use this font for business would result in compliance issues, because it's unclear what you can and can't do with it.

Before 1989 the United States required a copyright symbol and year of publishing on every work. After 1989, i don't know of any country that still does this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Copyright_notices_in...

AFAIK in USA at least, until 1976 that was the deal. From that year on, everything is copyright by default.

This change was because The Night of the Living Dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead#Copyri...

It's possible in any of the countries that are gray on this map, but I'm not sure if any of them actually do it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berne_Convention_signatori...

In general, unless you live in Burma or something, you can assume that if you don't have a license, you can't do anything with any content.

A normal web page would probably have a link to the license information, but since you can't put links in CSS pages the author just had to make it open source.

what ? this is a normal web page. what do you mean CSS page ?

Bootstrap style pages look gorgeous, but don't tend to say anything useful, and I hate it.

I know it has nothing to do with CSS, and it is technically possible to have a link to something useful when using a pretty design, but I have yet to see an example. Judging by the 25 (now 26) karma I lost I think a lot of people here really like good looking pages with no links or information.

I don't think you understand bootstrap and how it pertains to HTML and CSS.

You're losing karma because your complaint has no basis in fact, not because of aesthetic concerns.

What the hell are you on about? There are a variety of links on the page. You can't build a page out of CSS only.

> What the hell are you on about?

Please don't address other users aggressively on Hacker News.

Consider how much better this comment reads if one deletes the first sentence. It goes from being a bad HN comment to a good one immediately.

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