Regarding attempts to put things in the public domain, it is widely held that, at least in the USA, there are two possibilities. The first is that you can decla

Regarding attempts to put things in the public domain, it is widely held that, at least in the USA, there are two possibilities. The first is that you can declare something to be in the public domain and put it into the public domain. The second is that declaring something to be in the public domain (even without an affadavit) forms a reliable estoppel in case the author wants to exercise his copyright later. The end result is that, either way, public domain dedications are seen by most people as legally reliable.