Delayed Public Domain Dedication
How would I do a delayed Public Domain dedication on a copyrighted work?
In the copyright notice of the "Advanced Shell Scripting Guide" (at the bottom of the page), it says:
"The author intends that this book be released into the Public Domain after a period of 14 years from initial publication, i.e., in 2014. In the early years of the American republic this was the duration statutorily granted to a copyrighted work."
(See http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/copyright.html)
If it works, then it went into the public domain this year.
Hello? Anyone there? :)
Well, even an instant public domain dedication is challenging in many countries and not well defined unlike copyright because of intense lobbying by ugly monopolists and the public domain is neglected...
The way copyright works the only person who can sue you for infringement is the copyright holder and if they have indeed made such a statement then it should follow they have no standing to sue you. Then again the law is a game of chance and often the party with the deepest pockets to hire the most brutal legal lackeys wins.
That would seem like a legit way of going about it and my non-lawyer opinion is that it's PD now. YMMV.
However, it might be advantageous to not drop the copyright but instead use it via copyleft thus guaranteeing a work remains free. Public domain material is free-for-all and can be made non-free as regularly happens. Of course it probably depends on what you're licensing which option makes the most sense.