Re: A Little Linguistic Playground

On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, Joseph P. Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 1999, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Folks are missing the point. The law does not permit a copyright to be
> > > "vacated" or revoked. There is no statutory provision for doing so.
> >
> > That is not what the law says. Nowhere in the law says that I cannot
> > put my work in the public domain.
>
> That statement is true. But you still miss the point. The law
> specifies how a work obtains a copyright. When those conditions are
> met, the copyright attaches. Anything you do or say does not "override"
> the law, unless the law provides a specific mechanism for undoing what
> it has done. The statutes provide no mechanism for destroying the
> copyright, except for the passage of the requisite time, or of course
> a subsequent law.
>
> I know of no cases on point, but I would not advise any client to use a
> work without a license from the copyright owner.

It seems to me that the objective of this thread is to devise a new word which could be universally understood to imply or convey an appropriate licence - in the case of "decopyright", a universal, unconditional and irrevocable licence in respect of all acts restricted by copyright for the duration of the copyright. The Free Software Foundation have promoted the word "copyleft" to convey a slightly more restricted licence, one that prohibits the imposition of restrictions on modified versions of the work and requires the imposition of the same "copyleft" licence on subsequent licensees.

(I dislike "decopyright" because, besides being ugly, it implies a verb "to copyright")

A further thought - is it intended that the 'vacation of rights' should extend to moral rights? Or is there a requirement for another simple expression to convey a universal, irrevocable licence in respect of all acts restricted by copyright provided that the author is identified and the work is not subject to modifications prejudicial to the honour and reputation of the author?

-- 
Edward Barrow
edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk