[ceejayoz]

> In general, this is true, but some countries do not have a concept of public domain and so releasing it into the public domain would make it completely unusable to people in those countries.

I've heard this in the past. Functionally, what's the issue with this? The person who placed it into the public domain seems unlikely to sue in a country that doesn't recognize the public domain status.

[seanalltogether]

Maybe it's possible that some entity within that country could pick up the code, slap their own copyright on it, and claim to now own the code? Probably a long stretch but maybe that's the case.

[sukuriant]

Could we get a lawyer from one of those countries in here to answer this? I'm curious of the answer, as well.

[thristian]

I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the issue is not 'countries that don't recognise the public domain', but rather 'countries that do not allow authors to donate their works to the public domain', which includes the USA (since 1978):

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.ht...