Any code developer who releases FOSS code under an unsigned,
nonexclusive license retains the original copyright
ownership rights. If the code developer subsequently legally
transfers his copyrights to a new owner, the code released
under the license is no longer protected from infringement
claims
Eben Moglen's theory of:
Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to
remain within the bounds of the license not because she
voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right
to act at all except as the license permits.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
is
The FSF analogy of public license and the GPL is really what I was
referring to. The analogy of
the GPL as a General Public License is extremely confusing to a large
number of people.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
The essence of copyright law, like other systems of property
The following link is the best work on license
law that I have ever found:
http://www.lawyerdude.8k.com/5943.html
Disaster lurks for those who do not comprehend
the difference between a *malefaction* and a
*benefaction* in copyright license law.
--
license-discuss archive is at
In the case of the GPL an original preexisting author A
prepares (authorizes) modification of his preexisting
work and grants permission to distribute his preexisting
work. Author B accepts these permissions granted by the
GPL and modifies the preexisting work. This is now a
derivative work.
1) There is an exclusive right of an original author to
prepare (authorize) a derivative work. This is granted
under section 106(2) of the Copyright Act.
2) Two distinct exclusive copyrights exist in an
authorized derivative work. The preexisting author's
copyright in the material which will form
Perhaps these comments from the annointed version of
the Copright Act will clarify things:
HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
Section 103 complements section 102: A
Under Utah law, the elements of promissory estoppel are:
(1) The promisee acted with prudence and in reasonable
reliance on a promise made by the promisor;
(2) the promisor knew that the promisee had relied on
the promise which the promisor should reasonably expect
to induce action or
If the GPL is a bare license,then what binds the two
mutually disjoint permissions in a distributed
derivative work. How is distribution authorized?
There are two copyright authors in a derivative work,
the preexisting authorizing author and modifying author.
In a bare license or unilateral
Section 103 (b) of the Copyright Act says:
The copyright in a compilation or derivative work
extends only to the material contributed by the author
of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting
material employed in the work, and does not imply any
exclusive right in the preexisting material.
Here is a New Public License (pun intended) that contains no contract
terms, deters commercial sale or lease and the Federal Government will
be happy to enforce it's conditions for you.
**
NEW PUBLIC LICENSE
Copyright
If any of the rules and formalities of contracts you mention
are required to be enforced under state law, that involves an element
of state action. The GPL purports to overcome privity questions about
third party distribution ad infinitum. This appears to create a new
right against the world that
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