On Sep 30, 4:05 pm, Garthan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Can one explicitly declare something in the public domain if you are > the copyright holder?
Not in the European Union. Copyright is an inalienable right. You can assign it; you can bequeath it; you can choose not to enforce your rights; but copyright always exists up to seventy years after the death of the author. Only then do works pass into the public domain. You can explicitly declare that you will not enforce copyright. Or you can use something like Creative Commons licences and explicitly allow certain uses (that is, you're choosing not to enforce certain rights) http://creativecommons.org/about/license/ NB: I'm in England. US copyright law has always seemed odd to me, and may well allow a public-domain declaration. I would interpret that as non-recallable -- ie once you've made it, you can't then retrieve your work from the public domain. EU law doesn't allow you to make such a declaration. NB(2): I'm not a lawyer, but have had to research English copyright law fairly extensively. Andrew --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
