Re: Public Domain

["Peter B. Boyce" <pboyce@aas.org>]

I suggest that we not invent new words which could have unintended
consequences. As Bede points out, "public domain" is a well understood term
which means that the copyright owner makes the work freely available to
everyone, while retaining the copyright.

A new term such as "decopyright" could be interpreted as abandoning
copyright on the work entirely.  In some countries, this can not be done,
because the rights are invested in the author no matter what.  But, in
other countries I suspect it could be interpreted to mean that there is no
copyright on the work and that someone else could use the work -- maybe
including it in a collection or incorporating it in a work of their own --
and assert their own copyright. This is not the intended outcome.

So. let's, as Bede says, spend a little more effort on educating ourselves
and others about the meaning of "public domain."

_____________________________________________________
Dr. Peter B. Boyce                                                
Senior Consultant for Electronic Publishing              
American Astronomical Society                              
http://www.aas.org/~pboyce	pboyce@aas.org


-----
>>From: Joseph P. and Connie M. Riolo <riolo@voicenet.com>

>>If one desires to put his/her work in the public domain, he has to write
>>a statement to effectuate it such as "I put this essay in the public
>>domain".  This is fine for most people but the term "public domain" is
>>not intuitive because it does not resemble the term "copyright" in any
>>way.  Therefore, I propose a new word called "decopyright".  It means to
>>deprive a work of the copyright.