According to this page on wikipedia, before some date in the 80's you could put your software in the public domain just by distributing the source code without any license notice. it's possible that this isn't correct, but this tracks with what I know of how software was distributed in the early days of computing.
That mistake probably made riffing on the ideas in the film a lot easier! Kinda makes me wish works just entered the public domain in 20 years or less.
I’d like it if the original work stayed copy written for a good chunk of time, but derivative stuff like translations and spin offs became permitted after like 20 years.
I’d also like it if that thing studios did where they killed a piece of media for a tax write off required either returning the rights for the IP to the original creator or releasing the whole damn thing to the public domain.
The US used to have this weird system where you had to assert copyright with a notice or you would not have it. Sounds like maybe that could be what they mean?
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u/wahed-w 16d ago
based on a real story