Study presented at the 13th session of the Committee for Development in IP at WIPO, Geneva (May 2014). http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/cdip_13/cdip_13_inf_10.pdf

1. Comparative Analysis of National
Approaches on Voluntary
Copyright Relinquishment
Dr Andres Guadamuz
University of Sussex, UK

2. Text
Can you relinquish your copyright?

3. Of course!
Surely!
Errrr… I guess so?
Why are you asking?

4. Depends on the view of
copyright
Copyright as a property right: you can do what you
want with your property, even donate it.
Copyright as a fundamental right of personality: you
cannot renounce basic rights.

5. Terminology
Public domain
dedication
relinquishment
renouncement
abandonment

6. Relinquishment (Kenya)
s. 45(1) of the Kenyan Copyright Law:
“The following works shall belong to the public domain-
[…] (b) works in respect of which authors have
renounced their rights;”
s 45(2): “For the purposes of paragraph (b),
renunciation by an author or his successor in title of his
rights shall be in writing and made public but any such
renunciation shall not be contrary to any previous
contractual obligation relating to the work.”

7. Moral rights (Colombia)
“Art. 30 (1) The above [moral] rights may not be waived
or transferred.
When authors transfer and authorize the exercise of
their patrimonial rights they grant the enjoyment and
disposal referred to the respective contract, and retain
the [moral] rights provided in this Article.”

8. Results by country
Country Allows
voluntary
relinquishment?
Can
moral
rights
be
waived?
Brazil Unclear No
Chile Yes No
China Unclear No
Colombia Yes No
Egypt Unclear No
France Unclear No
India Yes Unclear
Kenya Yes No
Republic
of
Korea Unclear No

9. Who is dedicating works to
the public domain?
Scientific projects (Human Genome Project)
Memory institutions
Public bodies
Very few individuals

10. Creative Commons

11. CC licensing suite
BY Attribution
BY-NC Attribution - Non Commercial
BY-SA Attribution - Share Alike
BY-ND Attribution - No Derivatives
BY-NC-SA Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike
BY-NC-ND Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives

12. CC0
Public domain dedication to the extent permitted by
law.
If local copyright law does not allow relinquishment,
then it acts as a “royalty-free, non-transferable, non
sublicensable, non exclusive, irrevocable and
unconditional license” to exercise all rights in the work.

13. CC0 adopters
The British Library:
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Library
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Europeana
Genomes Unzipped
German National Library
Harvard Library
Netherlands Government
Sage Commons
Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre

14. And…
“As a work of the United
States Government, this
document is in the public
domain within the United
States. Additionally, the
United States Government
waives copyright and
related rights in this work
worldwide through the
CC0 1.0 Universal Public
Domain Dedication.”

15. Text
Concluding…

16. a.guadamuz@sussex.ac.uk
Thanks