: What's the worst that can happen with CC0? I'd like to release some artwork under the CC0 license, but I'm a bit worried about the implications of that... What is someone allowed to do with

@Gloria351

No one can claim to be the original author on a public domain work.
That is considered Copyfraud.
Assingning a different license to a public domain work and redistributing it is possible. But that does not change the original public domain dedication. So there will be no way of enforcing those restrictions ;)

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@Smith574

There is one thing that a user of the work cannot do, and that is to claim copyright on the original work. One of two things happens (legally) with CC0: either the work is released into the public domain (if local copyright law permits that); or the author of the work retains full copyright, but the work is licensed for any and all uses. Effectively (though not legally) these are the same thing - specific uses of the work may be copyrightable and have a different license (such as prints or other derivative works), but the work itself is either in the public domain or under your copyright, and no other person (or entity) can claim copyright of the original. For example, if you were to release a story under CC0, a book produced using that story can be copyright by another person/entity, but it's things like typesetting, illustrations, pagination and so forth that are copyrightable in the new work, not the story itself.

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