> In this case, the author is using "decolonize" to mean to liberate the work from private ownership and make it available to the public.

If that's the case, it seems like jargon for jargon's sake. IMHO that sense would have been much more clearly communicated by using a word like "democratize."

The situation kind of brings to mind slang, where people often invent unneeded new words mainly as a way to signal being fashionable or being part of a group.