On 2012-08-14, Ben Tilly wrote: > Based on http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225 and similar > articles, I'd long believed that a declaration that you were > abandoning copyright was a meaningless farce. > > Then by accident today I ran across http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html > which claims the opposite, and cites actual court decisions as > evidence. > > Is D. J. Bernstein out of his depth here, or does he have a valid point? > Look to "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works" (my selections):
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726 Article 6bis Moral Rights: 1. To claim authorship; to object to certain modifications and other derogatory actions; 2. After the author's death; 3. Means of redress (1) Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to **object** to any distortion, mutilation or other **modification** of, or other derogatory **action** in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation. Ever with any possible licence agreement that fully grand you permission unlimitedly modify copyrighted work original author still can limit some changes to his work if you fall under the jurisdiction of the countries which sing "Berne Convention". Same applied to things that you state is in "Public Domain" in countries which sing "Berne Convention". So while author alive you may be litigated by him if changes to his work prejudicial his honour. -- Best regards! _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss