Public Domain

[Jaime E . Villate]

On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 01:05:40PM +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 12:36:59PM +0200, Werner Koch wrote:
> > > Does this mean you can't just give up your copyright around here?
> > 
> > Correct.  The authorship is an unalienable right like your own
> > life.  There is no way to give it up, you can of course give away
> > the right to use your work.
> 
> This isn't true as far as the UK is concerned. Authorship provides one (in
> _most_ circumstances :) with first ownership of copyright. However, that
> copyright can be sold/bought, as it is just a commodity

There are two different things here "authorship" and "copyright"; the first
one is unalienable, but the second one can be assigned to others (it
originally belongs to the author).
A good place to read about it is http://www.loc.gov/copyright/, and notice
that even works published in Europe, by people living in Europe, can be
registered at the Library of Congress, because there are signed treaties among
U.S.A. and European countries.

Cheers,
Jaime