[Coco] [Color Computer] The ongoing Hot Coco saga

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 13:55 -0400, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> Creative Commons has good ideas but unfortunately their implementation is
> problematic.

They are all lawyers. Doesn't that mean we can trust them? ;-)

>  The abandonment of copyright is a rather difficult process,
> and heirs to a copyright that has been 'given' to the public domain either
> formally (as I have) or with a Founders' Copyright can still make a case
> that such a statement does not trump Federal law.

What Federal law is at issue? The way FC works is that you sell your
copyright to CC for $1 (so that it's a contract, with consideration).
Assignment of copyright just requires a writing under the statute of
frauds... something like "I assign ownership of copyright rights to work
X to CC" would do it (their language will be better, I promise). Then CC
gives you exclusive rights to the work for 14 years, renewable in 14 or
28 year increments. Which you could further license to someone else.

If you don't renew, then they as the copyright owner place it into the
public domain. So it's not you that places the work into the PD. It's
CC. So the only thing the family could challenge is the original
copyright assignment contract. And copyright assignment by contract is
based on settled law... lawyers know how to do it.

But the whole scheme does require putting a lot of trust into CC. Your
recourse if they turn bad is common contract law. Hopefully they allow
putting some hefty liquidated damages into the contract to protect
participants in the program.

-- John.