> As I said, I personally think it's far better to just put very small
> files in the public domain.  Then the issue goes away completely.

You cannot put works in the public domain in many countries (expiration 
is the only legal way for a work to enter the public domain in these 
countries). And it can't be done easily in the US anymore as far as I 
know. Cited from the Wikipedia:

"In the past, in some jurisdictions such as the USA, a work would enter 
the public domain with respect to copyright if it was released without a 
copyright notice. This is no longer the case. Any work receives copyright 
by default and copyright law generally doesn't provide any special means 
to "abandon" copyright so that a work can enter the public domain (in the 
USA, the Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990 provides a 
registration mechanism for public domain computer programs at the Library 
of Congress, but it is still not explained how the work should be placed 
in the public domain in the first place)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

It looks like we are bound to licenses to give work to "the public".

-- Daniel