What If I No Longer Need My DBA?
Let’s assume that you have been doing business under a fictitious business name (FBN – also known as a DBA for “doing business as”). You are about to shut the business down, so you would like to get rid of the DBA as part of you effort to minimize the likelihood of any ongoing obligations or liabilities. How can you do this?
In California, the answer is provided in the Business & Professions Code. Section 17920(c) says (emphasis added) “A fictitious business name statement expires when the registrant files a statement of abandonment of the fictitious business name described in the statement.” (more…)
Can I Abandon a Copyright?
Copyright protects works of authorship and, in the U.S., subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form (see Copyright Protection in One Easy Lesson).
Demonstration in Sweden in support of file sharing, 2006
In certain circles, however, there is fervent opposition to copyright (see the Wikipedia entry for Anti-copyright).
Suppose that an anti-copyright author wants to abandon the copyrights in his works. (Sometimes this also is called dedicating work to the public domain.) Can he do so under U.S. law?
Although there is no statutory basis for abandonment, there is widely-accepted case law stating that a copyright owner may abandon his copyright by an overt act that manifests a purpose to surrender his rights to the work and let the public copy it.
