3 ms·

In a way we do, called Gemeinfrei. But the only way to transfer something to it, is dying and waiting 70 years.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
What is the status of work that no one knows where it came from? A recipe for a cake is written on a paper and left on a bulletin board in town. It has no name and no one witnessed it being posted. Everyone sees it and now knows how to make this cake. The author may or may not be dead for 70 years. Is it illegal to even document this cake recipe? You couldn't legally recount it in a news article or history text book without being able say who the author was and prove that they either granted a copy right or are known to be dead for 70 years? Or worse, you are not only incentivised but essentially obligated to claim the authorship yourself just so you have someone to assign it to? The thing undeniably exists regardless that the legal structure provides no place for it. It's patently ridiculous. (guilty, terrible pun intended).
- zinekeller 5y ago
  > A recipe for a cake And there we come to the nuance of copyrights, at least in the US: you can't copy the text of the recipe, but the recipe itself don't have protection itself. Specifically, the text of the recipe is literature (which is protected), the recipe itself are instructions (which is not protected). This is the whole justification into clean-room design and reverse-engineering in software. Also psuedonymous or even anonymous publications do have copyright (insert a legalheap of asterisks here). This actually sadly results into something called "orphan works", where they don't knew (or if they knew cannot find the next-of-kin/successor company/maybe even the government where the company was incorporated) where they can ask for permission.
- deleted 5y ago
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- wongarsu 5y ago
  That's called an orphan work. You can apply §61 UrhG, which in this case would mean donating it to an archive, museum, library or university, who can then search for the author and after turning up empty are allowed to publish it. From there you can probably quote it, citing them as your source.

What is the status of work that no one knows where it came from? A recipe for a cake is written on a paper and left on a bulletin board in town. It has no name and no one witnessed it being posted. Everyone sees it and now knows how to make this cake. The author may or may not be dead for 70 years. Is it illegal to even document this cake recipe? You couldn't legally recount it in a news article or history text book without being able say who the author was and prove that they either granted a copy right or are known to be dead for 70 years? Or worse, you are not only incentivised but essentially obligated to claim the authorship yourself just so you have someone to assign it to? The thing undeniably exists regardless that the legal structure provides no place for it. It's patently ridiculous. (guilty, terrible pun intended).

zinekeller 5y ago
> A recipe for a cake And there we come to the nuance of copyrights, at least in the US: you can't copy the text of the recipe, but the recipe itself don't have protection itself. Specifically, the text of the recipe is literature (which is protected), the recipe itself are instructions (which is not protected). This is the whole justification into clean-room design and reverse-engineering in software. Also psuedonymous or even anonymous publications do have copyright (insert a legalheap of asterisks here). This actually sadly results into something called "orphan works", where they don't knew (or if they knew cannot find the next-of-kin/successor company/maybe even the government where the company was incorporated) where they can ask for permission.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wongarsu 5y ago
That's called an orphan work. You can apply §61 UrhG, which in this case would mean donating it to an archive, museum, library or university, who can then search for the author and after turning up empty are allowed to publish it. From there you can probably quote it, citing them as your source.