> And so, something like CC0 is more likely to accomplish the intended goal.
This is news to me. Up to now I thought simply a missing copyright notice
automatically translates into public domain.
Then what would be the legal status of of the legacy public domain base?
For instance could I be held liable for modifying a public domain humor/joke
and sharing that in a forum? Or modifying the lyrics of a folks song, etc.?
There is an immense database of works without even a trace to their origins.
More to the point, there are sites to download so called public domain
programs - huge collections of them. What are their status?