Le 2 Janvier 2006 17:30, Mathieu Bouchard a écrit :

It's also possible to put a work directly in the Public Domain. Excerpt from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain#Copyright" : "It is commonly believed by non-lawyers that it is impossible to put a work into the public domain. Although copyright law generally does not provide any statutory means to "abandon" copyright so that a work can enter the public domain, this does not mean that it is impossible or even difficult, only that the law is somewhat unclear."

About 1978, there's a catch. In the U.S., it's only since 1989 that works have a default copyright. If you look at the following link, in the section "WORKS PUBLISHED IN THE US", works published between 1977 and 1989 without a copyright notice and without a subsequent registration are in the public domain: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm