Re: NYTimes.com Article: Moore Foundation funds new journals

["Fytton Rowland" <J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk>]

Quote from the NY TImes article

"........with the goal of cornering the best scientific papers and
immediately depositing them in the public domain."

Am I right in thinking that "public domain" is different from free public
access?  If something is in the public domain there is no copyright in it
- in US law can that mean that someone can claim authorship of work that
is not theirs?  In the academic world it matters that work is attributed
to the right person, even if that person has publicly declared that anyone
can read it without payment.

Fytton Rowland