[LINK] Ars: 'Musopen raises $40, 000 to set classical music "free"'

[Roger Clarke]

>On 2010/Sep/14, at 11:54 AM, Roger Clarke wrote: ...
>>  [What Aaron's really doing (which is a great idea) is using donations
>>  to pay for recordings of performances, and then making them available
>>  under a liberal copyright licence.]

At 16:25 +1000 14/9/10, Kim Holburn wrote:
>I'm not sure.  I looked for CC style attributes on the site, but not
>exhaustively, and didn't find any but it does mention "public domain"
>and it is clear that they understand what the term means.  I believe
>it is possible for a copyright owner to donate works to the "public
>domain".

What I was trying to say (clumsily, sorry) is that:

I don't believe that the law has any concept of 'public domain' for 
works that are still within copyright.  You can't 'give it away'.

What the law *can* do is construe from your actions that you've 
granted a licence, and from Aaron's actions it would probably 
construe a very liberal licence.

There's no need for any formal indication, such as a CC licence mark, 
for a licence to be granted, or deemed by the courts to have been 
granted.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University