
Placing documents into the public domain (2008) - aburan28
https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
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legulere
Why not use a CC0 license which is essentially the same?

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Houshalter
If they are really the same then it doesn't matter of course. One advantage
might be that everyone's heard of the public domain, I have never heard of
CC0. I would not know what restrictions there are to that without reading the
license carefully. But reading "public domain" tells me everything I need to
know. In fact the web page explaining CC0 is kind of confusing, and links to
an even longer FAQ.

And with the public domain, you don't even need a license, just write "Public
Domain" where you would normally write "Copyright 2016", and it's done. Why
use a license at all when the public domain exists?

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cyphar
Not all jurisdictions have a concept of public domain. To claim that "public
domain is good enough" is to ignore the 80% of the world that doesn't have the
same copyright system as you.

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Houshalter
What countries? Has anyone in those countries ever been sued by using public
domain works? And if they don't respect Public Domain, why would they respect
the CC0 license? How is writing "CC0" on the bottom of the page any different
than writing "Public Domain" on the bottom of the page?

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cyphar
> What countries? Has anyone in those countries ever been sued by using public
> domain works?

It's a question of "can you willfully put your work in the public domain", not
" is there an expiry on copyright". It's also possible that some company's
lawyers might get unhappy if their company uses such a work.

> And if they don't respect Public Domain, why would they respect the CC0
> license?

Becuase they still have copyright law, they just don't have a concept of
public donation.

>How is writing "CC0" on the bottom of the page any different than writing
"Public Domain" on the bottom of the page?

In western countries there's essentially no difference. But because CC0 is an
actual legal document that has provisions for jurisdictions that don't
recognise public domain as a concept, it's a significant difference.

