But the "disclaims copyright" language probably has some legal value, in many jurisdictions. It might be interpreted as a public-domain dedication, where those have meaning. Or, as a promise which was relied upon, preventing a later copyright-enforcement claim by estoppel doctrines.
A lawyer could say, and of course the advantage of existing licenses/dedications is that they've already been legally reviewed for clarity across many jurisdictions. But this sort of overt declaration may still protect many re-users if push ever came to legal shove. And it might even be useful to establish such a precedent – that sharing is safe with only such a small, clear, plain, blanket statement.
Here, also, Creative Commons' "CC0" declaration is a friend of authors who want to be universally open. CC0 was designed with multiple fallback clauses, intended to also handle copyright systems like those of France or Germany.
But perhaps not as universal?
I'm not aware of any European countries where you can not cede reproduction rights / proprietary rights?
I agree that the licensing terms need clarification.
see: https://web.archive.org/web/20120510151444/http://methodlogi...