Becoming an intellectual property donor
Would you be willing to donate your intellectual property to the public domain upon your death, so it does not need to wait the 50 or 70 years to be released by law?
The idea (with action video!) resides on the website of experimental designers fi5e and max azare at ni9e.com.
An honourable idea, but it makes me wonder how valid will signing a sticker really be under the law?
Hat tip to Will Spaetzel for the link.
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March 4th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Even if the sticker works, I suspect it might not trump the reversion to the estate that occurs 25 years after death for assignments that are not made in a will.
Copyright Act, s. 14:
14. (1) Where the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright therein, no assignment of the copyright and no grant of any interest therein, made by him, otherwise than by will, after June 4, 1921, is operative to vest in the assignee or grantee any rights with respect to the copyright in the work beyond the expiration of twenty-five years from the death of the author, and the reversionary interest in the copyright expectant on the termination of that period shall, on the death of the author, notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, devolve on his legal representatives as part of the estate of the author, and any agreement entered into by the author as to the disposition of such reversionary interest is void.