How about this simplification of the Creative Commons license:
This (book/artwork/webpage/...) is made available to everyone under the following license:
You are free to copy and/or redistribute the (...) in any medium or format. You are free to adapt, remix, transform, and/or build upon the (...) for any purpose, including commercial use. This license is irrevocable once accepted by using any of the rights granted, provided that you credit (my name) for the use of the work. The credit may be given in any reasonable manner.
That provides a universal license. I would even leave out the requirement for credit to get the full equivalent of public domain, but I included it because I think that giving credit will provide the necessary "consideration" (quid pro quo = something for something) necessary to make a binding contract.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer. I am not guaranteeing that the above will work.
While it's true that there is currently no mechanism for placing something in the public domain(*), you can get a very similar effect by attaching the CC-BY license to it:
Creative Commons with Attribution
Meaning anybody is free to do anything they want with it, as long as they say they got it from you.
(*) Before 1978, you could publish the work without a copyright notice. Or you could place a specific declaration: "copyright abandoned" on the work. Now it appears that the courts will not (necessarily) recognize even an explicit declaration of abandonment.
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Re: Creative Commons
How about this simplification of the Creative Commons license:
This (book/artwork/webpage/...) is made available to everyone under the following license:
You are free to copy and/or redistribute the (...) in any medium or format. You are free to adapt, remix, transform, and/or build upon the (...) for any purpose, including commercial use. This license is irrevocable once accepted by using any of the rights granted, provided that you credit (my name) for the use of the work. The credit may be given in any reasonable manner.
That provides a universal license. I would even leave out the requirement for credit to get the full equivalent of public domain, but I included it because I think that giving credit will provide the necessary "consideration" (quid pro quo = something for something) necessary to make a binding contract.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer. I am not guaranteeing that the above will work.
creative commons
While it's true that there is currently no mechanism for placing something in the public domain(*), you can get a very similar effect by attaching the CC-BY license to it:
Creative Commons with Attribution
Meaning anybody is free to do anything they want with it, as long as they say they got it from you.
(*) Before 1978, you could publish the work without a copyright notice. Or you could place a specific declaration: "copyright abandoned" on the work. Now it appears that the courts will not (necessarily) recognize even an explicit declaration of abandonment.