Please consider releasing your writeups into the public domain.

Copyrights are sticky: you receive them by default unless you explicitly deny them. You gave E2 the implicit right to publish your writings, but that's it: nobody else can copy or modify your materials in any way.

Everybody eventually leaves E2; maybe they lose interest, forget about it, or die. The material they contributed is then left to rot. Nobody, not even E2, is allowed to update it. Teachers who want to distribute copies in class or projects like Wikipedia have to wait until the material falls into the public domain, which happens 70 years after the author's death. Why not instead ensure that your writings receive the widest possible use, right away? This also provides some protection against E2 going bankrupt or otherwise terminating the site.

We all know deep down that intellectual property rights don't exist. Nothing in Plato's heaven of ideas can be owned by us mere mortals. To acknowledge this openly and to deliberately enlarge the public noosphere can be quite liberating and refreshing. We're all really just little neurons in the evolving brain of the universe.

Convinced? To release your writeups just attach a note like the one below. Note that this action cannot be taken back. If others reuse and modify your text (which they may do without acknowledging your authorship), then their modifications may be copyrighted, but your original remains in the public domain forever.


This writeup is in the public domain.