Re: Software Licensing Agreement

You give up your rights and can take them back? On what theory? If you have no rights, you have no rights. End of discussion.

If you give a license, then you can revoke the license (subject to notice and equity limits and such, I presume), but if you relinquish your rights under what possible theory can you get them back?

Dedication to the public domain, relinquishing rights is not the same as giving permission to use. The former is relinquishing rights, the latter is a license.

I cannot reclaim a book that I have given to someone. I cannot reclaim money I give to a charity. Once I give up title, I give up title.

Again, under what possible theory could one reclaim a copyright in a work in which one has renounced all copyright?

Is there any instance of it being done? Of a court letting someone undo the dedication?

I can imagine a situation of coercion or duress or fraud vitiating a dedication to the public. But that can't be the concern, is it?

Mere "dedicator's remorse" can't really be the worrisome flaw, surely!

Knowing whether something is merely not having rights asserted in it vs. it having been dedicated to the public domain is vexatious problem -- as are orphan works and such. But that cannot be the risk or flaw referred to, is it?

If you do not want the copyright, just say so. The government is not forcing you to keep it or to assert it. Many things are freely available either as having been dedicated to the public domain or as having a broad license to use and disseminate. In both cases one needs to say something. One may not like that policy choice, as opposed to the necessity of affirmatively doing something to claim the right, but it is merely a policy choice, not a legal flaw or risk attendant to actually doing it.

Steve

On Feb 6, 2006, at 6:15 PM, McKie, John wrote:

> IMHO, I think that the crux of the question is whether, once you
> have made
> such a public disclaimer, whether or not you are legally prevented
> from
> "taking it back". By analogy you can generally withdraw a mere
> permission
> to use a work. Likewise, what legally prevents you from
> withdrawing the
> permission inherent in announcing that the disclaimer is rescinded?
> Presumably principles of equity apply where there is acquiescence,
> but my
> guess is that this does not give the clear predictability that
> proponents of
> public domain dedication in copyright disclaimers seek.
>
>
> John McKie
> Trademark Partner
> Ladas & Parry LLP
> johnm[_at_]ladas.net <mailto:johnm[_at_]ladas.net>
> P: 312.427.1300
> F: 312.427-6663
> www.ladasparry.com <http://www.ladasparry.com>

-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                                 vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law                       fax:  202-806-8428
2900 Van Ness Street NW                         
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Washington, DC  20008      http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any  
immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend  
or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Neibuhr