Re: Copyright of console illustrations

["Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com>]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2025 at 12:23:48PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> Michael Lustfield <michael@lustfield.net> writes:
> 
> > On Sat, 30 Aug 2025 18:47:39 +0200
> > "Andrea Pappacoda" <tachi@debian.org> wrote:
> >
> >>     License:   public-domain
> >
> > As a rule of thumb, nothing is actually public domain unless it's very old.
> > There are licenses that attempt to replicate public domain, but it is not
> > possible to simply state you release something into public domain--at least not
> > in EU or US.
> 
> Do you have any reference explaining that claim?
> 
> My perception is that there are frequent current publications of public
> domain content, including stuff from NIST based on this "license":
> 

The position for US Government may be different: the US government retains
copyright which can be asserted but the works of the US government can be
placed in the public domain in the US. It remains feasible for the US
government to assert copyright on this for anywhere elsewhere in the world.

Potentially the same is true of UK Government works that are Crown Copyright
where there may be a requirement to seek permission from the originating
department before use.

> https://spdx.org/licenses/NIST-PD.html
> 
> Another example are DJB's libraries, for example lib25519:
> https://lib25519.cr.yp.to/license.html
> 
> /Simon