Gream, Matthew wrote: > This is the case in the UK under the CDPA 1988, for both cases of copyright > assignment (s.90) and exclusive licenses (s.92): they must be in writing and > signed. Whether any interpretation, in light of other legal instruments or > case law, recognises digital signatures as having equivalent effect to this > is question better answered elsewhere.
There is a Directive (99/93/EG) which mandates that EC member states recognize electronic signatures as equivalent to paper signatures. I am not sure whether it also states that digital files are equivalent to "in writing". > It would seem to be the case that submitting a patch constitutes granting a > perpetual non-exclusive implied license for the reasonable purposes of > incorporation of the the patch into the project under the terms of the > license of the project - the patch being used to modify the work (the I think it is debatable in many cases whether a patch by itself is sufficiently original to qualify for copyright. But in any case you'd be best off insisting on an explicit copyright and license statement with the patch. > project) and create a derived work (the new project). Interestingly the > individual portions (i.e. files) of the project could lapse from copyright > (and, therefore, GPL protection), even while copyright subsists in the > entire collection as a whole, unless the project could be claimed to be a > database, and subject to a relatively perpetual protection under a sui > generis database right (which exists in the EU). [1] That's Directive 96/9/EC. I do not think the sui generis database protection can be applied to computer programs. There has to be qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents (art. 7(1)). European caselaw seems to focus on the principle that the investment has to be primarily aimed at these activities. If the database is a "spin-off", a byproduct of something else, it's not protected. http://www.ivir.nl/publications/hugenholtz/fordham2001.html Note that this right is not available for producers of databases who live outside the EC member states (art. 11(2)). Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3