Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If you want to publish a free-to-copy book, you can simply place it into the public domain  . |
Right now, there's a crazy loophole in US copyright law; nobody's sure it's possible to place works in the public domain. There's no provision for it in the law--everything is copyrighted when it's placed in a fixed format, and copyright lasts an insane number of years.
Pre-1976, placing works in the public domain was done by not tagging them as copyrighted, so no option for it needed to be included in law. The legislators failed to noticed that this option had been removed (because, of course, why would anyone want to place their works in the public domain?).
Nevertheless, people have occasionally declared "this work is in the public domain," and the works have been copied at will. As yet, nobody's heirs have shown up and demanded the copying stop and damages be paid.