2009/6/5 Bernhard R. Link <brl...@debian.org>: > * Dmitrijs Ledkovs <dmitrij.led...@gmail.com> [090605 14:01]: >> > I've asked multiple times and not yet got a single argument why >> > "I herby place this and that in the public domain" could see any danger >> > to be misunderstood or invalidated by a German court. > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain#Rule_of_the_shorter_term >> >> Sorry no better source. > > Only thing I can find there is that the "years after authors death" > is the same without looking where the author lived. And it also says > that the USA has the same behaviour in this regard. > > I doubt we will find useable software anytime soon where the > software is in the public domain because the author is many decades > dead, but I was speaking about people giving up their copyrights. > > Hochachtungsvoll, > Bernhard R. Link
"However, some countries make exceptions to this rule. A notorious case is Germany, which has had a bilateral treaty with the U.S. governing copyright since January 15, 1892. That treaty, which is still in effect, defined that a U.S. work was copyrighted in Germany according to German law irrespective of the work's copyright status in the U.S, and it did not contain a "rule of the shorter term". In one case, a German court therefore decided that a U.S. work that had fallen into the public domain in the U.S. was still copyrighted in Germany in 2003 in spite of §7(1) of the EU directive." Good enough for me. -- With best regards Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima), Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org