On Sunday 18 January 2009 03:24:52 pm Bernhard R. Link wrote: > * Sean Kellogg <skell...@gmail.com> [090118 19:37]: > > The US has done all it can on this via its domestic laws... the relevent > > section being: > > > > ---------- > > § 105. Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works > > > > Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the > > United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded > > from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, > > bequest, or otherwise. > > ---------- > > > > That is the only source of copyright that the United States has control > > over. > > No, there could for example also a law that the US government is not > allowed to enforce copyright of government made works outside of the USA. > Or at least some promise not to do.
That seems like an awfully specific request, if you ask me. The GPL, for example, doesn't promise the Author won't or can't sue... it simply says a license is granted, which comes with all manner of implications. I think § 105 is the best you are going to see out of the US government. > > But, by the same token, a government can also declare that the [...] > > Of course governments can do many stupid things (some people may even > claim copyright at all is evil and stupid), but my question was not > about some theoretical country, but about the current state of the > world. > > I'm not a layer but I'm not sure about Germany's law and perhaps it might > be similar in many other countries might do the same. Does anyone have any > information about if such US goverment works are really free outside the > US? Well, lucky for us, I happen to be a trained lawyer. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I have not paid by bar dues and thus am not an actual factual lawyer, but I play one on the internet from time to time. > Or can someone try to understand what in > http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000105----000-notes.html > is the meaning of > "The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government > works is not intended to have any effect on protection of these works > abroad. Works of the governments of most other countries are > copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons for denying such > protection to United States Government works in foreign countries, or > for precluding the Government from making licenses for the use of its > works abroad." > and explain? Couple of critical points about this. First up, nothing on that page is "law" in the enforceable sense. That page is from the House Committee Report on the 1976 Copyright Act. Now, unlike most legislative committee reports, this particular house report has been given a LOT of weight by courts when trying to figure out what the Congress meant when it enacted revised Title 17. The net result is you see this report cited a lot because it provides useful contextual clues. Don't ask me why this ONE report gets special privileges while the others are treated like garbage. Having said all that, the meaning of this paragraph -- to me, at least -- is straight forward. It says that the U.S. Government, having decided to deny itself a copyright in the U.S., does not preclude itself from accepting a copyright from a different jurisdiction. If the Canadians wish to grant U.S. Governments works a copyright, then § 105 doesn't stop that. Nor does it stop the U.S. Government from enforcing such a copyright once it is issued. What it *doesn't* say is that a foreign government is required to grant a copyright. It's up to them... if they do, then the U.S. will take it... if they don't, not a big deal. Now, I will admit I am not a Berne Convention expert... but I was under the impression that a big part of that convention was the idea of reciprocity. A member nation is obligated to provide coyright protection domestically IF the author's home nation provides protection. Put another way, a foreign nation has no obligation to provide protection if the home nation does NOT provide protection. Which, to me at least, means a foreign government is under no obligation to protect U.S. government works. But, like I said before, it's really a matter of local jurisdiction. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg e: skell...@gmail.com w: http://blog.probonogeek.org/ Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
