Warp wrote:

>   There's a clear contradiction between that site and
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6225
> 
>   The former says:
> 
>  "Nothing modern is in the public domain anymore unless the owner
> explicitly puts it in the public domain"
> 
>   The latter says:
> 
>   "There is nothing that permits the dumping of copyrighted works          
> into the public domain"
> 
>   (That is, there exists no legal mechanism by which you can get rid
> of the copyright of a work: Someone will always own it, no matter what
> they say, until it expires.)


This is probably a mix up of different part of what copyright means.

If you create something, you own all the rights to it. Some of these
rights can be signed away, for example the right to make copies or to
use that work in some way. You can sell them, or you can just say "I
don't care, use it any way you want." This is meant by donating works to
the public domain. Sometimes there are conditions for the free use, for
example in Gnu Copyleft that any derivative work must also be donated to
the public domain, and that the author retains the right to be
identified as author.

However, even if you donate some work to the public domain, you can not
undo the fact that you created the work and published it. In that sense
you allways retain the copyright.

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