Is copyright law dating uniform at this point? I wouldn't be surprised if it is...
one thing I remember reading On The Internet a while back was a theory (from a lawyer I believe?) that stated that you can't just say you put something in the public domain, and have it then be in the public domain.
Like, you can choose to explicitly grant rights of usage, but simply writing "I am putting this work in the public domain" doesn't actually do anything, and is functionally very close to being the same as "all rights reserved".
I don't know if it's true though. I suppose we're fortunate that "nobody around to care" helps in practice for these kinds of conservation efforts that are victimless crimes at best.
one thing I remember reading On The Internet a while back was a theory (from a lawyer I believe?) that stated that you can't just say you put something in the public domain, and have it then be in the public domain.
Like, you can choose to explicitly grant rights of usage, but simply writing "I am putting this work in the public domain" doesn't actually do anything, and is functionally very close to being the same as "all rights reserved".
I don't know if it's true though. I suppose we're fortunate that "nobody around to care" helps in practice for these kinds of conservation efforts that are victimless crimes at best.