Re: What does "disclaiming a copyright mean"?

[Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org>]

Andrew Donnellan writes:

> Disclaiming a copyright means releasing into the public domain. (as in
> no copyright at all). IANAL, but looking at what the license file
> says, I would assume it to be copyrighted by Said Abdeddaim and
> released under the LGPL, but the parts written by Burkhard Morgenstern
> are PD.

I disagree.  This paragraph is boilerplate from the GPL (in the section
on applying the GPL's terms and conditions to your own work).  I believe
the goal is to have a third party (like an employer) state that it does
not have a copyright interest in a work, so that other people can rely
more easily on the licensor's statement that the licensor licenses the
work under the GPL.

The goal of the copyright disclaimer would then be to reduce uncertainty
about whether the employer might later claim copyright (perhaps because
the program could be considered a "work made for hire" or perhaps
because the employer's contract with the employee normally gives the
employer rights in programs written by the employee) and then try to
apply terms inconsistent with the GPL terms to it.

The person who issues a copyright disclaimer is not saying that there
is no copyright -- just that he or she doesn't claim any copyright.  I
don't know if there are court cases that interpret the effect of this
disclaimer in various jurisdictions.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> | This is a new focus for the security
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | community. The actual user of the PC
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     | [...] is the enemy.
                                       |          -- David Aucsmith, IDF 1999