Re: A Little Linguistic Playground

On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> OK, I confess I'm speculating here -- and I am certainly not a
> contracts scholar. But a license is a contract

Ah, except that a license, in the copyright sense of that word, is not a contract, or at least, it doesn't need to be. It's a waiver.

And a waiver (and a non-exclusive license) doesn't need to be in writing, and doesn't need to be oral. It can be created implicitly by an action, like by posting to an internet newsgroup, which implicitly waives the right to complain about the message being copied and distributed, at least in further posts in that newsgroup.

If someone appends to a copyright protected work the notation (or like words) "I own all rights in this, and hereby surrender them without conditions to the public domain forever" is the work in the public domain? In the case of software I think source code must be included (else I would question the sincerely of surrending the right to make changes), but in general, sure -- the rights are waived, so they're waived. And at least once anyone relies on the waiver (which probably happens the moment the work is downloaded by someone who was read it), it can't be withdrawn.

• Charles

Charles B. Kramer
cbknyc[_at_]aol.com
<tilyou1[_at_]aol.com> Received on Sat Mar 27 1999 - 18:07:13 GMT