Re: A Little Linguistic Playground

On 03/27/1999, Charles B. Kramer <tilyou1[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> 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 it can't be withdrawn.
>

As I said in my original post, I agree that estoppel and reliance may create separate interests. But surely the reliance you speak of is specific, and not general -- that is, I can't sue people who have in fact relied on my statement, but I could revoke the statement at any time and then sue people who copied my work after the revocation.

Mark Lemley
<mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> Received on Mon Mar 29 1999 - 15:19:19 GMT