On Wednesday 14 Jan 2009 10:34:03 am jtd wrote: > > when releasing your work under public domain, you relinquish your > > rights under the law of copyright - but you still have all your > > rights under the law of torts and criminal law. Which means that if > > someone distorts what you said, and attributes it to you, you can > > sue them or prosecute them. > > Interesting. But do you still retain the copyright, and others dont > need permission from you to use subject to torts and criminal law?
releasing something in public domain simply means relinquishing copyright. Public domain is *not* a license. Once you relinquish your copyright, no one has copyright on the work. Anyone can use it as they like without any permission or need to attribute. For example, the works of shakespeare are in public domain. Anyone can print them in any way they want, with or without distortions and shakespeare, or his heirs cannot complain. But if I published a shakespeare sonnet as if I was the author, I would be guilty of plagiarism - and depending on the context, subject to various penalties. If I did the same with a copyrighted work, I can be sued for breach of copyright as well as be subject to the penalties connected with plagiarism. Similarly I can publish Rony's comments without attribution - I can also distort or mangle them - but if I do so in such a way as to imply that he has said something he has not said, he has a cause of action to sue me in the civil court, and possible also a case under section 499/500 IPC to prosecute me in the criminal court. There is a group of people spreading FUD that the BSD license is public domain. It is not. It is a license, and the author retains copyright with all the rights that he has not released under the license. There is also the view that public domain is not recognised in law - but as far as India is concerned, the copyright act recognises public domain, so that is not an issue here. -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves Associate NRC-FOSS http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/ -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
