Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
BSD Protector writes: > With all due respect, this mailing list is called: > "license-discuss". > > 1. GPL is a license. > 2. It is being discussed. 3. It is not a license under consideration for approval by OSI. Therefore ... it is off-topic for this mailing list. -- --My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | Coding in Python Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | is like 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | sucking on sugar. Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Sweet! -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
--- Ian Lance Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is a mailing list for discussing licenses which > have been submitted to OSI for approval. OK, I promise not to post on this topic again. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
BSD Protector <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > --- Daniel Carrera wrote: > > > Can we stop these posts already? > > With all due respect, this mailing list is called: > "license-discuss". However, that doesn't mean that it is a mailing list for discussing all licenses, or the theory of licensing. This is a mailing list for discussing licenses which have been submitted to OSI for approval. Some of the recent posts make me feel like I'm reading one of those books which explain why the U.S. government can only legally collect income tax from residents of Puerto Rico and Guam, or whatever the current claims are. Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 06:45:49PM -0800, BSD Protector wrote: > > Can we stop these posts already? > > With all due respect, this mailing list is called: > "license-discuss". > > 1. GPL is a license. > 2. It is being discussed. As someone mentioned earlier, this is list is about not about discussing Copyright Law. It is about discussing whether a license fits the open source definition or not. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | No trees were harmed in the generation of this e-mail. PhD student. | A significant number of electrons were, however, severely Math Dept. UMD | inconvenienced. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
--- Daniel Carrera wrote: > Can we stop these posts already? With all due respect, this mailing list is called: "license-discuss". 1. GPL is a license. 2. It is being discussed. I do not see what the problem here is. Also, note that implications of that discussion might affect other licenses, namely Open Software License 2.0. See 1(c) of the OSL v. 2.0: - c) to distribute copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute shall be licensed under the Open Software License; - Just as "viral" as the GPL. I would further claim that every single license that requires conditions to be repeated "ad infinitum" (i.e. self perpetuating conditions) is in fact viral, at least partially. This would then mean, in terms of contract law, "universal privity", which is a problem in itself. So, the intention of the discussion is to determine this: 1. Does Copyright Act give explicit rights to license without requiring additional legal machinery? 2. Does Copyright Act give explicit rights to put conditions on the above licensing? 3. Does Copyright Act require, demand or imply a contract between owners of copyright for a copyrighted work to be used in a manner defined in section 106? Or does it recongnize the multiple unilateral permission as sufficient to do so? 4. Can Copyright Act provide standalone protection for copyrighted works or does it require other legal machinery to do so? By answering the above questions we'll be closer to determining if there is such a thing as "bare license" or "copyright license" and if GPL, OSL etc. are in fact examples of such licenses. I see this as very important, given the amount of code that's released daily. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light
To OSI License Discussion subscribers, From: Daniel Carrera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Can we stop these posts already? About 280KB worth of e-mail has now be exchanged in discussing this topic, including the 'amusing' spin-off discussions. It's certainly an important topic, if for no other reason than it has ramifications for other licenses beyond the GPL and, indeed, for the nature of Open Source. It also of course affects a large number of products and projects, although that is beyond the scope of the discussions here. But at this stage, it might be worthwhile for all parties to acknowledge widely divergent opinions exist regarding the legality of the GPL (and have for a long time) and that the best way of 'establishing' its' legal basis is still to wait and see how it fares once tested before a court. That may happen during the SCOX vs. IBM litigation. Subject: Copyright Act preempts the wave theory of light A significant number of electrons were, however, severely inconvenienced. Energy is your friend =) Cheers, Nathan. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright Act preempts itself
Thanks. I wasn't actually expecting an answer. I was just thinking outloud after I've read a lot of the "such and such preempts the GPL" stuff. What I've concluded after reading the Copyright Act is that: 1. The Act explicitly establishes the concept of licensing, completely independently of any contracts. In other words, the notion that "every license is a contract, be it bilateral or unilateral" is in fact completely wrong. To authorize means to license - the Act gives that power, nothing else is required. 2. The Act recognises the concept of licesensing under conditions. It is therefore not necessary for any contract to exist in order to enforce those conditions. The license is either given if conditions are met or it is not if they are not met. 3. The Act recognises the concept of multiple permissions given by owners of copyright without any agreement between those owners. In other words, it is not necessary (but it is also not forbidden) for the owners to form a contract in order to authorize anything. What is needed is that the recieving party has all necessary permissions and that the conditions are met. --- "Lawrence E. Rosen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Read my book when it is published in the next few > months. In the meantime, > please don't expect any attorney to answer your > broad questions in an email > thread. (You may get lucky. There are some attorneys > on here with time on > their hands.) > > /Larry Rosen __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, John Cowan wrote: > Brendan Hide scripsit: > > > The first two books I pick up from the shelves: > > The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: > > "(c) Oxford University Press 1999 > > > > Database right Oxford University Press (makers) > > First published 1999 > > > > All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, > > [remainder snipped] > > [second example snipped] > > > These look like licenses to me. > > They're not. They are warnings that the standard rights of copyright > owners are reserved. A license includes a grant of rights: these > notices are anti-licenses that don't grant anything. BTW what does the team think about notices such as this one: Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, California 94303 U.S.A. All rights reserved. Duke(TM) designed by Joe Palrang. RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the United States Government is subject to the restrictions set forth in DFARS 252.227-7013 (c)(1)(ii) and FAR 52.227-19. The release described in this manual may be protected by one or more U.S. patents, foreign patents, or pending applications. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUN) hereby grants you a fully paid, nonexclusive, nontransferable, perpetual, worldwide limited license (without the right to sublicense) under SUN's intellectual property rights that are essential to practice this specification. This license allows and is limited to the creation and distribution of clean room implementations of this specification that: [... list of conditions omitted for brevity]. I read this as a one-sided grant, rather like the BSD license: if I take the trouble to read it then I find I have more rights than I previously thought, provided I comply with the conditions. Otherwise, I'm just reading a book. However it has been suggested to me that this notice could be intended to restrict the ways in which the book's contents can be used: that if I go ahead and create and distribute a clean room implementation then it has to fulfil all the listed conditions. And that I may not distribute my implementation under an open source license, because that would amount to sublicensing. Fact or FUD? -- Chris Gray VM Architect, ACUNIA -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
On Friday 01 November 2002 12:32 am, Brendan Hide wrote: > Cryptography in C and C++ reads: > "Copyright (c)2001 by Michael Welschenbach > > All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or > transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, > including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or > retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright > owner and the publisher." > > These look like licenses to me. Hmm, are those really licenses, or are they mere copyright notices? > Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I > haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let > my 8-year-old sister click on "Agree", that I can reverse-engineer > Windows XP? I don't know about South Africa, but here in the United States lawsuits are won not according to the law, but according to who has the biggest laywers. Microsoft has bigger lawyers than you do. This means that if they say you have agreed to their license, then you have indeed agreed to their license. If they say the moon is made of green cheese, who are you to argue? -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org pgp public key on website -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
Brendan Hide scripsit: > The first two books I pick up from the shelves: > The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: > "(c) Oxford University Press 1999 > > Database right Oxford University Press (makers) > First published 1999 > > All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, > [remainder snipped] [second example snipped] > These look like licenses to me. They're not. They are warnings that the standard rights of copyright owners are reserved. A license includes a grant of rights: these notices are anti-licenses that don't grant anything. But as owner of a lawful copy, you still have lots of rights, just not the five standard copyright rights. > You're also supposed to get fair use rights, of course. I forgot to > mention that I'm South African and that my experience of US law is > limited to cliché television programs (and reading the license-discuss > list). ZA is a signatory to the international copyright treaties, so its law is pretty well aligned with everyone else's. It may differ in the question of copyright terms, moral rights, etc. > I should have said "do anything beyond the rights given to you by fair > use law" rather than use. You are misusing the term "fair use". Anyway, the ZA legal term is "fair dealing". > Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I > haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let > my 8-year-old sister click on "Agree", that I can reverse-engineer > Windows XP? In South Africa, the receipt would count for diddly squat. Minors can't make valid agreements. Not reading a license does not relieve you of it, any more than trying to walk out of a store with something is legal if you haven't read the price tag. > You can't make a "backup" copy unless the license specifically says so. This is a matter of local law, and may be true in ZA. -- Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far John Cowan coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that www.ccil.org/~cowan O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word www.reutershealth.com to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All [EMAIL PROTECTED] she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. _Ulysses_, "Oxen" -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown wrote: I am not being cynical, but the GPL is too overreaching. This is not just my opinion. I have visited dozens of free software websites and developer disfavor about the GPL is steadily increasing. From likes of AdIT? Regards, Mahesh T Pai. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
(For a few days, I had some hardware problem and could not access the net. Hence, I could not reply earlier. The original came to me off the list, but since the list appears to be very much interested, I am posting the reply to the list also.) Sujita Purushothaman wrote: You are way off topic here. This list is not for discussing things like "can I do 'x' if not, 'y' under license 'A' ". Such questions are, ideally decided on advice from lawyers. Well then, please accept my apologies. This thread is more than 40 posts in 7 days. That is more than usual load on the entire list. So, the apology is not really required. I thought the authors signed off the copyright to the the FSF? Somebody clarified that already on the list, and RMS too has put in a word. I am trying to make sense of Mandrake or Red Flag taking Red Hat Linux and coming up with their own commercial version. Obviously it is legal; What I don't understand is what kind of credits should the derived works carry. What is mandated by the GPL, what is not necessary but is polite, and what is not necessary at all. Under the GPL, 1. Thou shall, not change the license. 2. Thou shall, at all times, provide the source code (or tell 'em how to get it). 3. Thou shall, not restrict the kinds of uses to which the program is put to. 4. Thou may modify, if you modify, thou shall specify which file in a program you modify, ideally in the commented parts of it. This applies to the sources. If the binary is (a) interactive, and (b) displays some message when run, *then* when it is invoked, thou must display the copyright notice. This copyright notice should not be changed. 5. If the compilation and/ or installation requires any special paramaters, or scripts, thou shall make them available. 6. You make make your modifications to yourself, as long as you do not distribute them. 7. When you distribute the modified binary, you should make available the modifications to the sources also. 4, 5, 6 and 7 are specified, coz. whoever wrote GPL was primarily had the 'source code' in mind when he was referring to 'software'. And yes, under the law, compilated binaries are derived works. 8. Copyright in the originals belong to the original author, copyright in the modifications (not the entire modified work) belong to the person who modified. The difference is between saying :- "this was created by X" (about a program written by Y and modified by X) and "This program uses code written by Y and was modified by X" Does the GPL require me to say the seond line? Yes, and it is mandatory - in the sources. "the display when run clause" is attracted if the program displays when run. In a typical GUI environment, the usual place to say that would be help > about Regards, Mahesh T Pai. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
See below. I should have made some extra things clear. David Johnson wrote: On Thursday 31 October 2002 07:42 am, Brendan Hide wrote: You have the right to do *anything* with a copyrighted work only if you have agreed and complied with (and read) the license. I didn't mean that without the license you can do only nothing. I just meant that if you haven't read the license, you should assume that you don't have any additional rights. Bull pucky! Good one - LOL The vast majority of copyrighted works don't even have licenses. Reaching my hand over about two feet, I find myself picking up a copyrighted work at random. This appears to be "In the Court of the Crimson King", by King Crimson. Let's see if there's a license in it...no there is not. Let me reach in the other direction... "The C++ Standard Libary" by Nicolai Josuttis...no license. Licenses and copyrights are beasts residing in different phyla The first two books I pick up from the shelves: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: "(c) Oxford University Press 1999 Database right Oxford University Press (makers) First published 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above." Cryptography in C and C++ reads: "Copyright (c)2001 by Michael Welschenbach All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher." These look like licenses to me. You're also supposed to get fair use rights, of course. I forgot to mention that I'm South African and that my experience of US law is limited to cliché television programs (and reading the license-discuss list). Imagine you pick up some software from a store, but the box contains everything except the license. Do you have the right to use the software? Legally, you need to secure a license before you can use the software. Of course, nobody would, in their right mind anyway, sue you for using the software you paid them for. I should have said "do anything beyond the rights given to you by fair use law" rather than use. If I pick up some software from a store and pay for it, and obtain a sales reciept, then I am the legal owner of that copy. If I have a sales receipt then a sale has been made. As an owner of the copy, I possess numerous rights, including the right to use, dispose of, make archival copies of, and reverse engineer the software. Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let my 8-year-old sister click on "Agree", that I can reverse-engineer Windows XP? In South Africa, the receipt would count for diddly squat. You can't make a "backup" copy unless the license specifically says so. Of course, many lawyers will disagree with me. But the boxes and receipts in my possession argue in my favor. One example: Windows ME. The box clearly says "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Operating System". The same is listed on the "Certificate of Authenticity". -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
On Thursday 31 October 2002 07:42 am, Brendan Hide wrote: > You have the right to do anything with a copyrighted work only if you > have agreed and complied with (and read) the license. Bull pucky! The vast majority of copyrighted works don't even have licenses. Reaching my hand over about two feet, I find myself picking up a copyrighted work at random. This appears to be "In the Court of the Crimson King", by King Crimson. Let's see if there's a license in it...no there is not. Let me reach in the other direction... "The C++ Standard Libary" by Nicolai Josuttis...no license. Licenses and copyrights are beasts residing in different phyla. > Imagine you pick up some software from a store, but the box contains > everything except the license. Do you have the right to use the > software? Legally, you need to secure a license before you can use the > software. Of course, nobody would, in their right mind anyway, sue you > for using the software you paid them for. If I pick up some software from a store and pay for it, and obtain a sales reciept, then I am the legal owner of that copy. If I have a sales receipt then a sale has been made. As an owner of the copy, I possess numerous rights, including the right to use, dispose of, make archival copies of, and reverse engineer the software. Of course, many lawyers will disagree with me. But the boxes and receipts in my possession argue in my favor. One example: Windows ME. The box clearly says "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Operating System". The same is listed on the "Certificate of Authenticity". -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org pgp public key on website -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
"Ken Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > GPL advocates want the GPL to become the king of all free software licenses. > And if wants to be the king, it will have to go through the fire of legal > review in a court. Not really. The GPL relies more on public opinion than it does on the force of law. This is inevitable given the international character of free software development and the national character of law. Most programmers, grumble though they may about the GPL, will not violate it voluntarily. Any organization which tries to violate the GPL--and several have--runs into a firestorm of protest from programmers around the world. It's generally much easier to give in than to fight it in a court of law; even a victory in the court would still be a loss in the real world. > I am not being cynical, but the GPL is too overreaching. This is not just > my opinion. I have visited dozens of free software websites and developer > disfavor about the GPL is steadily increasing. It is just a matter of time > before the tenuousness of this license ends up in a court. I think money > will also force this issue into court, because inevitably, someone's > confusion about the license will lead to the loss of a ton of money. When > big cash is on the table, a court case is around the corner. Disfavor about the GPL is steadily increasing? You are obviously new to these flamewars. The GPL has been roundly despised in certain quarters since it was written. If anything, I'd say that developers accept the GPL more now than ever, since its adoption by Linux and increased understanding of what it really means. Confusion about the license leads naturally to avoidance of software under the license. It seems quite unlikely to me that confusion would ever lead to the loss of ``a ton of money.'' Anyhow, the point of [EMAIL PROTECTED] is hardly to discuss the nature of the GPL. That's what gnu.misc.discuss is for. If you want to discuss whether the GPL is an open source license, talk about it here. If you want to talk about whether the GPL is a good license, take it to gnu.misc.disucss. Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Dear Mr. Brown: It is evident from checking your e-mail address that you're the Vice-President Kenneth Brown of the Alexis de Toqueville Institute who recently dipped that organisation's toes into open source with an "analysis" paper[1]. Welcome to license-discuss. I've noticed that all of your posts to this mailing list to date have been, in essence, unadorned advocacy against use of the GNU General Public License by, one gathers, software engineers and those who employ them. Along the way, you've asserted that use of that licence negates ownership. You've vaguely suggested without evidence (or specifics) that that licence is at risk of being overturned in court, and that for unstated reasons the developers might not get credit for the work. You've promoted a legally unsupportable maximalist notion of what it means to "own" a copyright (while missing the irony that no software has ever been subject to such a bundle of rights, and probably never will be). You've mostly ignored cogent and helpful clarifications such as Wendy Seltzer's, Jown Cowan's, and Larry Rosen's, and gone straight back to advocacy. In short, you've been doing something of a Beltway Bandit lobbyist dance for us. What I'm left wondering is... why? The members of this mailing list conduct it not to advocate particular open-source licence over others, but rather to analyse proposed licences in light of OSI's Open Source Definition and surrounding legal issues. There are real issues we're discussing, such as mechanisms for registering licence assent, the adequacy of rights grants as opposed to contracts, and whether the OSD should address use restrictions (and how) -- not to mention discussion of several submitted licences, including two of Larry's (OSL and AFL). Maybe it's just me, but it strikes me that you, Ken Brown, not liking the GNU GPL really doesn't go especially well with the rest of those topics. [1] Referring to Mr. Brown's "Opening the Open Source Debate" white paper. http://www.roaringpenguin.com/adti2.php3 This would be the same institute that in June issued a separate white paper suggesting, to quote Internet News, "that terrorists may find it easier to hack U.S. networks run on open source infrastructure." http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1276831 -- Cheers,There are only 10 types of people in this world -- Rick Moen those who understand binary arithmetic and those who don't. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap "contract"
Brendan Hide scripsit: > You have the right to do anything with a copyrighted work only if you > have agreed and complied with (and read) the license. Not at all. You have hold of the wrong end of the stick altogether. When you buy a book, you have the right to read the book silently or out loud (but not to an audience), you can act on the information it gives you, you can study it to see how it is written in the hope of writing a better book yourself, you can even write a different book based on the same facts expressed differently, and scurvily give the author no credit whatever. You may write and publish a review praising or condemning the book in almost unlimited terms. On a less intellectual plane, you may set the book on fire, or use it to insulate your basement or to check erosion in a gully. You may give or sell it to anyone you please, or leave it around in public (absent littering laws) for the delectation of the next person to pick it up. You may lend it to your friends or the public, though you may have problems if you take money for this. All of this applies equally to movies, sound recordings, sculptures, magazines, computer programs, and any other copyrightable works. For computer programs, you also have the (U.S.) statutory right to make copies reasonably necessary for the use of the program or for backup. Copyright gives the author five and only five rights: to control the making of copies to control the making of derivative works to control the distributing of copies and derivative works to control the public performance of the work to control the public display of the work (There may also be "moral rights" that depend on the country.) > If you have not read the license, then you are not aware of your rights > to the work and you should assume that you have no rights over the work, > bar the fair use rights given to you by the law and international treaties. You should assume that you don't have any of the above five rights. But you have all the other rights of an owner over the work. (This assumes that you had no opportunity to read the license, or that you were merely invited to do so. Whether you *actually* read it is neither here nor there.) > Imagine you pick up some software from a store, but the box contains > everything except the license. Do you have the right to use the > software? Legally, you need to secure a license before you can use the > software. Of course, nobody would, in their right mind anyway, sue you > for using the software you paid them for. More than that. If you buy software in a box, and there is no license, that software is *yours*, and you can do anything you like that does not breach the above five rights. In particular, you can install it on as many computers as you like, for while this is copying, it is copying necessary to use. (IANAL, TINLA.) If the maker wants to restrict your behavior in this respect, he must get you to assent (generally by conduct, such as ripping open the envelope with the license on the outside and the disks on the inside) to a more restrictive contract. > If the license gives you secondary rights, then you have to read that > license in order to "get" those rights. If a user claims that there was > no assent that the user agreed with the license, because the license was > not presented to them, then there was no assent from the author that the > user can *use* the work either. No such assent by the author is required. The author must convince the user to contract away his rights. > Fair use laws give the user some basic > rights but that is it. Fair use (called "fair dealing" in some countries) gives you the right to do things that are normally reserved to the author; it is a defense against copyright infringement. If I write a review of your book and quote it to show what rubbish it is, that is (almost certainly) fair use, e.g. In the U.S., fair use is explicitly undefined and must be decided case-by-case, though the statute gives some guidelines that the court must consider. Most Commonwealth and European countries take a narrower view, though research and criticism are almost always exempted. -- Deshil Holles eamus. Deshil Holles eamus. Deshil Holles eamus. Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening, and wombfruit. (3x) Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! -- Joyce, _Ulysses_, "Oxen of the Sun" [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Mahesh, I appreciate your comments. It is good to hear from you. Fortunately (or unfortunately) court precedent trumps assertion. Just because a lot of people believe that something is right does not make it right - ethically or legally. There are over a hundred examples of things that were common practice for decades until ruled illegal by a court. When it comes to the law, it is not prudent to assume. GPL advocates want the GPL to become the king of all free software licenses. And if wants to be the king, it will have to go through the fire of legal review in a court. I am not being cynical, but the GPL is too overreaching. This is not just my opinion. I have visited dozens of free software websites and developer disfavor about the GPL is steadily increasing. It is just a matter of time before the tenuousness of this license ends up in a court. I think money will also force this issue into court, because inevitably, someone's confusion about the license will lead to the loss of a ton of money. When big cash is on the table, a court case is around the corner. Stay in touch. kb -Original Message- From: Mahesh T Pai [mailto:paivakil@;vsnl.net] Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 7:33 AM To: Ken Brown Cc: Brendan Hide; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown wrote: > FSF has bullied a couple of developers, but hasn't had a judge rule > in their favor yet. When they win in a court of law, I'll open my > mind to their sales pitch a little more. If the means used by FSF are 'bullying', how do you describe the activities of the BSA? I regard the fact that there is no decision in favour of the GPL as a major plus point in its favour. Absence of a ruling in its favour means, to me, :- 1. The license is easy to comply with. 2. There is no decision on GPL, coz no body went to court over it. 3. Nobody went to court over GPL coz. nobody continues with the violations once the fact is pointed out. That the FSF (or any other author who released his/her software under the GPL) never had to go to court is a major plus point of the GPL. > Without the restrictions of a license that insists on strict > enforcement of your copyright, ... You do not need a license to protect / enforce your copyright. The statute book does it. > From my research, agreeing to GPL your work does not technically > revoke your ownership of the playground, but it does revoke almost > all of the rights and privileges that come with ownership Will you please clarify that? > I cannot control what anybody does with my > work, besides assert credit, That is the *intention* of the GPL. In other words, it is not a bug but a feature. Regards, Mahesh T Pai. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown wrote: FSF has bullied a couple of developers, but hasn't had a judge rule in their favor yet. When they win in a court of law, I'll open my mind to their sales pitch a little more. If the means used by FSF are 'bullying', how do you describe the activities of the BSA? I regard the fact that there is no decision in favour of the GPL as a major plus point in its favour. Absence of a ruling in its favour means, to me, :- 1. The license is easy to comply with. 2. There is no decision on GPL, coz no body went to court over it. 3. Nobody went to court over GPL coz. nobody continues with the violations once the fact is pointed out. That the FSF (or any other author who released his/her software under the GPL) never had to go to court is a major plus point of the GPL. Without the restrictions of a license that insists on strict enforcement of your copyright, ... You do not need a license to protect / enforce your copyright. The statute book does it. From my research, agreeing to GPL your work does not technically revoke your ownership of the playground, but it does revoke almost all of the rights and privileges that come with ownership Will you please clarify that? I cannot control what anybody does with my work, besides assert credit, That is the *intention* of the GPL. In other words, it is not a bug but a feature. Regards, Mahesh T Pai. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
John Cowan wrote: You insist that you can own something 100% and relinquish 100% control at the same time. There is not a single legal precedent for this anywhere. Tell it to the FSF Marines. What GPL does is to relinquish control over *redistribution* of the material not the material itself. There is no legal precedent on GPL coz. it is clear enough, and coz. it is clear enough, no need for the 'assistance' of a court arose. Regards, Mahesh T Pai. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
To OSI License Discussion subscribers, From: Graham Bassett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, There is authority to show that, at least by analogy, equity could allow such specific performance. Multiple developers could be joined in an action or the open community or communities who have overseen the development could effectively represent the interests of such distributed developers. Critically, the organiser of such a community may be seen to have a fiduciary duty to their members as Bulun Bulun was seen to have to his tribe when he coded the dreams of the Ganalbingu people in an artistic fashion. (John Bulun Bulun v R & T Textiles Pty Ltd [1998] 1082 FCA per Doussa J [www.austlii.edu.au] 23/08/01): "The conclusion that in all the circumstances Bulun Bulun owes fiduciary obligations to the Ganalbingu people does not treat the law and custom of the Ganalbingu people as part of the Australian legal system. Rather, it treats the law and custom of the Ganalbingu people as part of the factual matrix which characterises the relationship as one of mutual trust and confidence. It is that relationship which the Australian legal system recognises as giving rise to the fiduciary relationship, and to the obligations which arise out of it." Aren't code writers the interpreters of our dreams in the digital world? The leader of the community could be the equitable owner of the copyright in the code made by the collective. The organiser's fiduciary role would then be to seek specific performance of any breach for, and on behalf of, the community who have given him or her their trust and confidence as part of the factual matrix in the development of the code. Graham, you make a very good point. Indeed, there is an increasing need to establish liability using measures other than money. I suspect that such measures will be codified in response to the proliferation of no-fee services, though, rather than Open Source software. However, while such measures could be used by Open Source authors to seek redress against proprietary vendors such as you suggest, it could also come back to haunt if a large user of Open Source packages decides to sue, or otherwise go after, their author(s). Admittedly there would be no reason for them to do so, but the possibility can't be discounted. BTW, hello from a fellow Australian :-) Cheers, Nathan. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
John Cowan wrote: > > Lawrence E. Rosen scripsit: > > > You "own" a copy of the software under a license from the copyright and > > patent holders. > > Why the horror quotes? Ownership is not absolute _alodium_, right enough, > but subject to the copyright owner's enumerated interests, ownership > of a lawful copy looks to me much like ownership of any other chattel. > You buy a book, you get to read it, scribble on it, burn it, use it to > check erosion in a gully. Same story for free software. There is an unavoidable difference between the material fixed-medium recording, and the ideas represented by the expression recorded there. Authors have statutory exclusive rights to expression, not real "ownership" in the sense of fundamental, natural rights. This is important when you want to get to the nitty gritty of just what copyright "ownership" boils down to. The author "owns" expression in the sense of statutorily granted exclusive rights. The buyer of the work owns the product. Nobody, or everybody, owns the ideal and/or cultural ideas that expressive works convey. The author has *exclusive rights* (copyright) to particular expressions. Seth Johnson -- [CC] Counter-copyright: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of this incidentally recorded communication. Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of exclusive rights. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Some thoughts on onwership relationships and remedies from OZ - This relationship of ownership could be one that arises in equity as well as copyright - the "custodians" (or at least the project coordinator) have a fiduciary obligation to others in the group - upon breach of the GPL where a person makes a derivative work and benefits form it commercially without returning the source code to the community one could argue that equity arises because breach of the contract has resulted in little economic loss - specific performance would be a better solution where the breaching entity is forced to reveal source code and return it to the community. Equity developed specific performance as "a remedy to compel the execution in specie of a contract which requires some definite thing to be done before the transaction is complete and the parties' rights are settled and defined in the manner intended." (J C Williamson Ltd v Lukey and Mulholland (1931) 45 CLR 282 at 297). A further remedy could then be to enforce an account for profits by the breaching party under copyright law. (Copyright Act Cth 1968 S115 (2) Subject to this Act, the relief that a court may grant in an action for an infringement of copyright includes an injunction (subject to such terms, if any, as the court thinks fit) and either damages or an account of profits.) It is not difficult to imagine a scenario arising where a commercial developer may be tempted to incorporate large sections of open source free code into their code and sell the resultant product while not releasing the modified code to the copyleft community, contrary to GPL. In such a scenario an account for profits is the best remedy for a group with limited resources - the plaintiff is not required to have suffered a loss and, if successful, can reap large rewards from an action against a defendant with deep pockets. (Peter Hastie, "Restitution and Remedy in Intellectual Property Law," (1996) 14 Aust Bar Review No 1) But this statutory remedy misses the whole point of the fee software movement. It is not motivated by money but by innovation and consequent access to the source code. In the free community, 'consideration' is the effort and time put into development of the program and any egoboo that results from its acceptance in the community. A breach is not an act that causes detriment 'in personam' - the commercial developer has acted against the values of a community. There is authority to show that, at least by analogy, equity could allow such specific performance. Multiple developers could be joined in an action or the open community or communities who have overseen the development could effectively represent the interests of such distributed developers. Critically, the organiser of such a community may be seen to have a fiduciary duty to their members as Bulun Bulun was seen to have to his tribe when he coded the dreams of the Ganalbingu people in an artistic fashion. (John Bulun Bulun v R & T Textiles Pty Ltd [1998] 1082 FCA per Doussa J [www.austlii.edu.au] 23/08/01): "The conclusion that in all the circumstances Bulun Bulun owes fiduciary obligations to the Ganalbingu people does not treat the law and custom of the Ganalbingu people as part of the Australian legal system. Rather, it treats the law and custom of the Ganalbingu people as part of the factual matrix which characterises the relationship as one of mutual trust and confidence. It is that relationship which the Australian legal system recognises as giving rise to the fiduciary relationship, and to the obligations which arise out of it." Aren't code writers the interpreters of our dreams in the digital world? The leader of the community could be the equitable owner of the copyright in the code made by the collective. The organiser's fiduciary role would then be to seek specific performance of any breach for, and on behalf of, the community who have given him or her their trust and confidence as part of the factual matrix in the development of the code. Graham Bassett __ Converging law, information technology and education to foster an autonomous cyberspace __ Graham Bassett BA, DipEd, MInfoTech, LLB (Hons) PO Box 1565 Byron Bay NSW 2481 Australia Tel. 0414986158 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bassett/ - Original Message - From: "Richard Stallman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 8:02 PM Subject: Re: Copyright > It's called the GPL because it assigns certain rights to everyone, not because > it makes everyone (or some abstract entity called "the ge
Re: Copyright
It's called the GPL because it assigns certain rights to everyone, not because it makes everyone (or some abstract entity called "the general public") the owner. Legally, a GPL-covered work is copyrighted and has certain copyright holders. For certain purposes, it makes a difference who they are. For instance, they alone have legal standing to enforce the GPL (in US law, at least). Since copyright holders are also called "owers", these persons are legally the owners of the work. However, in the GNU Project we see ourselves ethically not as owners of something we can use at our pleasure, but as custodians of the work on behalf of the public. In spirit, the public should be the owner, but since copyright law doesn't work that way, the public is not legally the owner. Credit is a different matter--we're all in favor of giving credit to people who advance knowledge. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Urm... I forgot to CC this to the list. I think I see your point. The real problem comes in when the original copyright owner does not participate in development. If I create A, and somebody else uses it to create B, I can use B to make A better. If my A is the first to be used by the community, then they probably won't be bothered with B because its just a clone. If somehow, I am no longer able to support and develop A, B will take over, in a marketing sense. This is part of the reason why the "distribution wars" are so tough. Conjecture: Because you've effectively "abandoned" any current development on the software you've written you lose ownership of the original copyright. Is this the "fear" (used rather loosely) you're highlighting? The only case where this particular argument can be held is when the original author does abandon the software. If this happens, should the author care? In reality, I'd rather put my software into public domain than abandon it. IANAL. If the above statements are way off the mark, even though I think they're spot-on, tell me. Ken Brown wrote: Brendan, Its tough to debate this, particularly because a court has not ruled on any of this ever, so much of the "discussion" is conjecture. John Cowan et. al are trying to sell you that if you or any other software developer distribute your work under the terms of the GPL, you will be able to take a user to court for distributing or modifying your work in a manner that you disagree with. What I like about the opensource.org group is that it empowers developers to customize their own licenses to how they see fit. The GPL is only one of over 30+ variations of os agreements. The FSF has bullied a couple of developers, but hasn't had a judge rule in their favor yet. When they win in a court of law, I'll open my mind to their sales pitch a little more. Without the restrictions of a license that insists on strict enforcement of your copyright, you might or might not get credit, and you will definitely lose traditional rights of a copyright; that right includes controlling how others profit from, change and distribute your work. This is inherently part of the commons model. From my research, agreeing to GPL your work does not technically revoke your ownership of the playground, but it does revoke almost all of the rights and privileges that come with ownership-so what is the difference? I cannot control what anybody does with my work, besides assert credit, that is not a copyright. Just ask any writer, artist, singer, or poet. Speaking specifically to the playground analogy, I guess it assumes that the children signed some sort of a "user agreement". If the user agreement read like the GPL, then I guess you wouldn't care what they did to the playground. But on the other hand, if the user agreement read like the GPL, you couldn't stop them either. kb -Original Message- From: Brendan Hide [mailto:brendan@;sacm.co.za] Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 4:06 AM To: Ken Brown; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown wrote: Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have ownership of the property? I know you've already given up - but just answer the questions below. If I build a jungle-gym in my front yard and tell the neighbourhood that their children can all use it - whose is it? If I also say that the parents can make additions to it to make it safer or more "exciting" - who is the owner after they've made these changes? -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > John Cowan et. al > are trying to sell you that if you or any other software developer > distribute your work under the terms of the GPL, you will be able to take a > user to court for distributing or modifying your work in a manner that you > disagree with. Sure you will. Copyright law is clear and settled, much more so than the shrink-wrap contracts that proprietary software companies depend on. Though the GPL has an unusual purpose, it's extremely straightforward. > What I like about the opensource.org group is that it empowers developers to > customize their own licenses to how they see fit. The GPL is only one of > over 30+ variations of os agreements. The FSF has bullied a couple of > developers, but hasn't had a judge rule in their favor yet. "Bullied"? It's bullying to stand up for your rights? > When they win > in a court of law, I'll open my mind to their sales pitch a little more. Nobody gets sued because the FSF wants compliance, not damages. Nobody defies the FSF because a) nobody wants the reputational hit of being the Grinch, b) their own lawyers won't let them. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan Assent may be registered by a signature, a handshake, or a click of a computer mouse transmitted across the invisible ether of the Internet. Formality is not a requisite; any sign, symbol or action, or even willful inaction, as long as it is unequivocally referable to the promise, may create a contract. --_Specht v. Netscape_ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Brendan, Its tough to debate this, particularly because a court has not ruled on any of this ever, so much of the "discussion" is conjecture. John Cowan et. al are trying to sell you that if you or any other software developer distribute your work under the terms of the GPL, you will be able to take a user to court for distributing or modifying your work in a manner that you disagree with. What I like about the opensource.org group is that it empowers developers to customize their own licenses to how they see fit. The GPL is only one of over 30+ variations of os agreements. The FSF has bullied a couple of developers, but hasn't had a judge rule in their favor yet. When they win in a court of law, I'll open my mind to their sales pitch a little more. Without the restrictions of a license that insists on strict enforcement of your copyright, you might or might not get credit, and you will definitely lose traditional rights of a copyright; that right includes controlling how others profit from, change and distribute your work. This is inherently part of the commons model. >From my research, agreeing to GPL your work does not technically revoke your ownership of the playground, but it does revoke almost all of the rights and privileges that come with ownership-so what is the difference? I cannot control what anybody does with my work, besides assert credit, that is not a copyright. Just ask any writer, artist, singer, or poet. Speaking specifically to the playground analogy, I guess it assumes that the children signed some sort of a "user agreement". If the user agreement read like the GPL, then I guess you wouldn't care what they did to the playground. But on the other hand, if the user agreement read like the GPL, you couldn't stop them either. kb -Original Message- From: Brendan Hide [mailto:brendan@;sacm.co.za] Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 4:06 AM To: Ken Brown; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown wrote: >Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General >Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have >ownership of the property? > > I know you've already given up - but just answer the questions below. If I build a jungle-gym in my front yard and tell the neighbourhood that their children can all use it - whose is it? If I also say that the parents can make additions to it to make it safer or more "exciting" - who is the owner after they've made these changes? -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Brendan Hide r sez: > > If I build a jungle-gym in my front yard and tell the neighbourhood that > their children can all use it - whose is it? If I also say that the > parents can make additions to it to make it safer or more "exciting" - > who is the owner after they've made these changes? As was pointed out earlier in the thread, analogies between physical property and intellectual property are going to fail. You could change this to "tell the neighbours that their children can all make copies of it", I suppose.. Silly, but then so is this entire thread (and at least this is on-topic). :-/ lewis -- Lewis Collard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown wrote: Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have ownership of the property? I know you've already given up - but just answer the questions below. If I build a jungle-gym in my front yard and tell the neighbourhood that their children can all use it - whose is it? If I also say that the parents can make additions to it to make it safer or more "exciting" - who is the owner after they've made these changes? -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujita Purushothaman scripsit: > ok, I think I missed the 'FSF-copyrighted programs' part. > That means this question is not talking about all programs > under the GPL. but programs under the GPL copyrighted by FSF. > > So, copyright notices cannot be removed, so the author's name > is still preserved. Exactly. -- "No, John. I want formats that are actually John Cowan useful, rather than over-featured megaliths that http://www.ccil.org/~cowan address all questions by piling on ridiculous http://www.reutershealth.com internal links in forms which are hideously[EMAIL PROTECTED] over-complex." --Simon St. Laurent on xml-dev -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujita Purushothaman wrote: > John Cowan wrote: > > Qn : Why does the FSF require that contributors to FSF-copyrighted programs > assign copyright to the FSF? If I hold copyright on a > GPL'ed program, should I do this, too? If so, how? ok, I think I missed the 'FSF-copyrighted programs' part. That means this question is not talking about all programs under the GPL. but programs under the GPL copyrighted by FSF. So, copyright notices cannot be removed, so the author's name is still preserved. Thanks! :-) Rgds, Sujita -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
John Cowan wrote: > > The GNU GPL (clause 1) explicitly says: > > # 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source > # code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously > # and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice > # and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to > # this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other > # recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. > So you are not "100% free" to remove the copyright notice. Indeed, you > are 0% free to do so. According to the GPL, the copyright belongs to the FSF. So, if I were to follow the letter of the law and keep only the copyright notice, credits to the original author wouldn't appear anywhere on the source code. Am I right? The FSF website is a bit confusing too. Here's what it says : Qn : I want to get credit for my work. I want people to know what I wrote. Can I still get credit if I use the GPL? You can certainly get credit for the work. Part of releasing a program under the GPL is writing a copyright notice in your own name (assuming you are the copyright holder). The GPL requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice. Qn : Why does the FSF require that contributors to FSF-copyrighted programs assign copyright to the FSF? If I hold copyright on a GPL'ed program, should I do this, too? If so, how? Our lawyers have told us that to be in the best position to enforce the GPL in court against violators, we should keep the copyright status of the program as simple as possible. We do this by asking each contributor to either assign the copyright on his contribution to the FSF, or disclaim copyright on it and thus put it in the public domain. We also ask individual contributors to get copyright disclaimers from their employers (if any) so that we can be sure those employers won't claim to own the contributions. Of course, if all the contributors put their code in the public domain, there is no copyright with which to enforce the GPL. So we encourage people to assign copyright on large code contributions, and only put small changes in the public domain. If you want to make an effort to enforce the GPL on your program, it is probably a good idea for you to follow a similar policy. Please contact <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> if you want more information. So,who has the copyright ? The author or the FSF? Thanks, Sujita -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
At 03:03 PM 10/24/02 -0400, John Cowan wrote: Wendy Seltzer scripsit: > Unless an owner dedicates a work to the public domain, releasing all > exclusivity, One small point, not really relevant to the rest of your posting. There are people on this list who argue that you can't do that under the existing copyright regime: once in copyright, always in copyright until expiration (assuming we ever *have* a copyright expiration again, that is). Creative Commons is working on a public domain dedication that we hope will satisfy those concerns. I don't think the legal defaults are right when it takes more effort to disclaim ownership than to assert it, but let's save that argument. Meanwhile here's hoping the Supreme Court tells us works must once again enter the public domain. --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: (212) 715-7815 // f: (212) 715-8192 // m: (914) 374-0613 Associate, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP Adjunct Professor, St. John's University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
> > modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of > > "RedHat" ? 2. If I am allowed to, to what extent? > The OSD allows licenses to prohibit that. Some jurisdictions may prohibit it. As John Cowan noted separately, trademark law can require the removal of trademarks. But a copyright notice is not a trademark. But the answers "does the law and license permit it" and "should it be done" are probably different. Of course no one "should" do that. I think there are the obvious ethical reasons. I think there is an important practical consideration: By removing all traces of the authorship, you will appear to be the responsible party, and not a mere re-distributor of the work. That may result in legal liability you didn't count on. You must be sure to communicate all license terms and warranty disclaimers, and who is offering the license and making the disclaimers. Doing anything else is fraud (usually illegal) or creates liability you don't want to assume. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
This answer is duplicitous. I think Sujita has a point. One of the central purposes of the GPL is to discourage ownership...ie. sending the property back into the realm of the General Public. To quote RS, to make the property "valueless commercially ...consequently free." A copyright/ownership/credit model are functions of proprietary models. Specifically, all Linux development belongs to the community, thus it cannot be owned. I guess I also disagree with the morality point. If the ethic of general public ownership is fairness and freedom for all, then why should some people insist on ownership while others have give it up? In sum, if Sujita would like to take any code or program from the General Public and do anything with it, the terms of the license dictate that as long as he understands that it remains the "property" of the General Public, is has 100% freedom to do so...with our without credit to any commercial or private entity. kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:37 AM To: Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Sujita Purushothaman scripsit: > I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under the > GPL, and B modifies it : > 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of A's name? Is B supposed to retain > A's name somewhere? It is customary for the copyright notice to include the author's name (though it does not have to) and GPL forbids tampering with the copyright notice. > For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some > modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of > "RedHat" ? This is a different question -- you not only can but you must. "Red Hat" is a trademark of Red Hat, and you have no right to use it. -- A mosquito cried out in his pain, John Cowan "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" http://www.ccil.org/~cowan The cause of his sorrow http://www.reutershealth.com Was para-dichloro- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Diphenyltrichloroethane.(aka DDT) -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > This answer is duplicitous. I take offense at the application of this term to me. duplicity: the belying of one's true intentions by deceptive words or action (m-w.com) > I think Sujita has a point. One of the central > purposes of the GPL is to discourage ownership...ie. sending the property > back into the realm of the General Public. To quote RS, to make the > property "valueless commercially ...consequently free." A > copyright/ownership/credit model are functions of proprietary models. All GPLed works are copyrighted and consequently have copyright owners. As for credit, which is what's at stake here, the FSF considers it so important that they try to convince people to say "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" in order that they receive (what they believe to be) proper credit for it. They are very far from believing that credit for the work that one has done is unimportant, proprietary, or subject to high-handed deletion by downstream maintainers. (I have copied RMS on this reply.) > I guess I also disagree with the morality point. If the ethic of general > public ownership It's called the GPL because it assigns certain rights to everyone, not because it makes everyone (or some abstract entity called "the general public") the owner. > is fairness and freedom for all, then why should some > people insist on ownership while others have give it up? In sum, if Sujita > would like to take any code or program from the General Public and do > anything with it, the terms of the license dictate that as long as he > understands that it remains the "property" of the General Public, is has > 100% freedom to do so...with our without credit to any commercial or private > entity. The GNU GPL (clause 1) explicitly says: # 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source # code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously # and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice # and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to # this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other # recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. So you are not "100% free" to remove the copyright notice. Indeed, you are 0% free to do so. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ccil.org/~cowan http://www.reutershealth.com Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia. --blurb for _Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi_ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Giacomo Catenazzi wrote: > The copyright notice (thus author names) are normally covered > by copyright law. IANAL, but I think you cannot modify the > credits (or better, you cannot remove credits), indipendent > of licenses! Removing "credits" is governed by the license. Most licenses are silent on that. The Academic Free License and the Open Software License will soon have explicit terms governing that. /Larry Rosen -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Ken, The GPL is designed to facilitate access, not to discourage "ownership." Someone owns the "property," and that someone is not the person who downloads the source code. GPL-subject software permits wide access and retransmission, because the GPL permits it, not because the "property" lacks an owner. If the downloading person turns out to be the owner, then the downloading person is at liberty to impose conditions on access to his retransmission. The GPL works only because some upstream copyrightholder continues to "own" the copyrighted work that is distributed under the license. Put differently, the downloading person remains subject to the limitations imposed by the GPL because there is a person with superior copyright ownership rights who, presumably, has the legal power to enforce the GPL's terms if the downloader tries to deal with that software in an unauthorized way. Noel D. Humphreys [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://radio.weblogs.com/0114730/ -Original Message- From: Ken Brown [mailto:kenbrown@;erols.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 12:42 PM To: John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Copyright This answer is duplicitous. I think Sujita has a point. One of the central purposes of the GPL is to discourage ownership...ie. sending the property back into the realm of the General Public. To quote RS, to make the property "valueless commercially ...consequently free." A copyright/ownership/credit model are functions of proprietary models. Specifically, all Linux development belongs to the community, thus it cannot be owned. I guess I also disagree with the morality point. If the ethic of general public ownership is fairness and freedom for all, then why should some people insist on ownership while others have give it up? In sum, if Sujita would like to take any code or program from the General Public and do anything with it, the terms of the license dictate that as long as he understands that it remains the "property" of the General Public, is has 100% freedom to do so...with our without credit to any commercial or private entity. kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:37 AM To: Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Sujita Purushothaman scripsit: > I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under > the GPL, and B modifies it : 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of > A's name? Is B supposed to retain A's name somewhere? It is customary for the copyright notice to include the author's name (though it does not have to) and GPL forbids tampering with the copyright notice. > For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some modifications, > and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of > "RedHat" ? This is a different question -- you not only can but you must. "Red Hat" is a trademark of Red Hat, and you have no right to use it. -- A mosquito cried out in his pain, John Cowan "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" http://www.ccil.org/~cowan The cause of his sorrow http://www.reutershealth.com Was para-dichloro- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Diphenyltrichloroethane.(aka DDT) -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 The information contained in this e-mail message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. This message may be an attorney-client communication and/or work product and as such is privileged and confidential. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
John, Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, whoever owns the code? kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 1:18 PM To: Ken Brown Cc: John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown scripsit: > This answer is duplicitous. I take offense at the application of this term to me. duplicity: the belying of one's true intentions by deceptive words or action (m-w.com) > I think Sujita has a point. One of the central > purposes of the GPL is to discourage ownership...ie. sending the property > back into the realm of the General Public. To quote RS, to make the > property "valueless commercially ...consequently free." A > copyright/ownership/credit model are functions of proprietary models. All GPLed works are copyrighted and consequently have copyright owners. As for credit, which is what's at stake here, the FSF considers it so important that they try to convince people to say "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" in order that they receive (what they believe to be) proper credit for it. They are very far from believing that credit for the work that one has done is unimportant, proprietary, or subject to high-handed deletion by downstream maintainers. (I have copied RMS on this reply.) > I guess I also disagree with the morality point. If the ethic of general > public ownership It's called the GPL because it assigns certain rights to everyone, not because it makes everyone (or some abstract entity called "the general public") the owner. > is fairness and freedom for all, then why should some > people insist on ownership while others have give it up? In sum, if Sujita > would like to take any code or program from the General Public and do > anything with it, the terms of the license dictate that as long as he > understands that it remains the "property" of the General Public, is has > 100% freedom to do so...with our without credit to any commercial or private > entity. The GNU GPL (clause 1) explicitly says: # 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source # code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously # and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice # and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to # this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other # recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. So you are not "100% free" to remove the copyright notice. Indeed, you are 0% free to do so. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ccil.org/~cowan http://www.reutershealth.com Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia. --blurb for _Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi_ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
"Ken Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the > code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, > whoever owns the code? It belongs to the copyright holder. I've written free software myself. I own the copyright on that software, and the files are so labelled. I've put the software under the GPL. That doesn't mean that I don't own it. It just means that other people are permitted to do certain things with it. (This answer assumes the current intellectual property regime. It's possible to make a different answer philosophically, but practically speaking today the copyright holder owns the code.) Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Noel, Thanks for your reply. Let me be clear. There is a big difference between saying that I have a copyright, which is intellectual property ...with legal enforceable rights, and saying that I have a copyright but I choose not to enforce it vs. I have a copyright, but I choose to put my material into a pool whose members have every right to retangle, untangle, rework and modify my work. This is particularly precarious when the GPL itself says that there is unmitigated circulation of the work which is completely opposite of the basic definition of copyright. If you cannot control distribution or modification, you do not have "copyrights." Noel, I put my code in the general public pool because I don't to make any money from it. So I get credit...big deal. Credit is entirely different from enforceable copyrights. Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have ownership of the property? kb -Original Message- From: Humphreys, Noel [mailto:nhumphreys@;AkinGump.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 1:38 PM To: 'Ken Brown'; John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Copyright Ken, The GPL is designed to facilitate access, not to discourage "ownership." Someone owns the "property," and that someone is not the person who downloads the source code. GPL-subject software permits wide access and retransmission, because the GPL permits it, not because the "property" lacks an owner. If the downloading person turns out to be the owner, then the downloading person is at liberty to impose conditions on access to his retransmission. The GPL works only because some upstream copyrightholder continues to "own" the copyrighted work that is distributed under the license. Put differently, the downloading person remains subject to the limitations imposed by the GPL because there is a person with superior copyright ownership rights who, presumably, has the legal power to enforce the GPL's terms if the downloader tries to deal with that software in an unauthorized way. Noel D. Humphreys [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://radio.weblogs.com/0114730/ -Original Message- From: Ken Brown [mailto:kenbrown@;erols.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 12:42 PM To: John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Copyright This answer is duplicitous. I think Sujita has a point. One of the central purposes of the GPL is to discourage ownership...ie. sending the property back into the realm of the General Public. To quote RS, to make the property "valueless commercially ...consequently free." A copyright/ownership/credit model are functions of proprietary models. Specifically, all Linux development belongs to the community, thus it cannot be owned. I guess I also disagree with the morality point. If the ethic of general public ownership is fairness and freedom for all, then why should some people insist on ownership while others have give it up? In sum, if Sujita would like to take any code or program from the General Public and do anything with it, the terms of the license dictate that as long as he understands that it remains the "property" of the General Public, is has 100% freedom to do so...with our without credit to any commercial or private entity. kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:37 AM To: Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Sujita Purushothaman scripsit: > I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under > the GPL, and B modifies it : 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of > A's name? Is B supposed to retain A's name somewhere? It is customary for the copyright notice to include the author's name (though it does not have to) and GPL forbids tampering with the copyright notice. > For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some modifications, > and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of > "RedHat" ? This is a different question -- you not only can but you must. "Red Hat" is a trademark of Red Hat, and you have no right to use it. -- A mosquito cried out in his pain, John Cowan "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" http://www.ccil.org/~cowan The cause of his sorrow http://www.reutershealth.com Was para-dichloro- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Diphenyltrichloroethane.(aka DDT) -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 The information contained in this e-mail message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named ab
Re: Copyright
"Ken Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > This is particularly precarious when the GPL itself says that there is > unmitigated circulation of the work which is completely opposite of the > basic definition of copyright. If you cannot control distribution or > modification, you do not have "copyrights." Noel, I put my code in the > general public pool because I don't to make any money from it. So I get > credit...big deal. Credit is entirely different from enforceable > copyrights. The copyright holder of GPL code has rights which are not possessed by anybody else. Specifically, for code to which I hold the copyright, I can sell the code under a license which is not the GPL--in other words, I can permit a license buyout. Nobody else has that right. > Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General > Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have > ownership of the property? Making analogies between physical property and intellectual property is perilous. If somebody changes physical property, they've affected me directly. If somebody changes their own copy of my intellectual property, they have not affected me at all. Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, whoever owns the code? If I buy a GPL program, I own it. It is mine. I can install it on any computer I own. I can also sell you a copy if you're willing to pay for it, as long as the original authors get credited correctly and I pass the source code to you as part of the deal. Or I can give you that program for free. If you want to bring your computer to Elkridge, Maryland, I will happily install Mandrake Linux on it for you -- either free or for a fee, depending on what deal you and I make. While you're here, maybe you'll want to buy a 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier I own and I'm thinking about selling. I own the car. I own my copy of Mandrake Linux. I can do whatever I want with them -- and manuals are included with both. But somewhere on a shelf around here there is an old Windows 98 CD gathering dust, and if I sell or give it to you, I am breaking the license agreement under which it was distributed. Note that I say "distributed," not sold. As far as I'm concerned, if I OWN something I should be free to SELL it, and most proprietary software licenses prohibit sale of used programs. Chevrolet can't stop me from reselling my Chevrolet car, and if you buy a copy of my book (came out last week), and later decide to sell that copy used, you're free to do so. Do you own all the software on your computer? I own all the software on mine. :) - Robin "Roblimo" Miller Editor in Chief, OSDN (Linux.com, Slashdot, freshmeat, and other Open Source Web sites) Personal site: http://roblimo.com -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > Thanks for your reply. Let me be clear. There is a big difference between > saying that I have a copyright, which is intellectual property ...with > legal enforceable rights, and saying that I have a copyright but I choose > not to enforce it vs. I have a copyright, but I choose to put my material > into a pool whose members have every right to retangle, untangle, rework and > modify my work. If you wrote the work, you are a copyright owner (unless your employer is, or unless you work for the U.S. government, or unless you transfer the copyright to the FSF or someone else), period. Nothing you can do about it. > This is particularly precarious when the GPL itself says that there is > unmitigated circulation of the work which is completely opposite of the > basic definition of copyright. The bundle of rights called "copyright ownership" constitute the right to prevent certain things. You don't have to exercise these rights for them to be actual rights. > If you cannot control distribution or > modification, you do not have "copyrights." The GPL emphatically controls modification. > So I get credit...big deal. Credit is entirely different from enforceable > copyrights. Credit is indeed a big deal, especially when profit is not available for a work. Most people want the justly acquired approval of their peers. > Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General > Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have > ownership of the property? Let a member of the public step in a rabbit-hole and break his leg, and it is you and no one else who will be sued. This is why public licenses disclaim all warranties. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.reutershealth.com "Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will have to do will be to send me a telegram asking and it will be done." "Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram from me asking you to do anything, you can put the telegram down as a forgery." -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
The inherent standard in court for copyright is ownership and control. The GPL negates your individual permissions. In addition, you revoke all rights to control distribution. Sure you can say that there is a copyright, but to me its like claiming ownership of air. Read the copyright restrictions that lawyers right for copyrighted work. They insist on 100% control of any and every alteration and permission on ALL distribution. The GPL is the opposite. kb -Original Message- From: Ian Lance Taylor [mailto:ian@;airs.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 2:00 PM To: Ken Brown Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright "Ken Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the > code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, > whoever owns the code? It belongs to the copyright holder. I've written free software myself. I own the copyright on that software, and the files are so labelled. I've put the software under the GPL. That doesn't mean that I don't own it. It just means that other people are permitted to do certain things with it. (This answer assumes the current intellectual property regime. It's possible to make a different answer philosophically, but practically speaking today the copyright holder owns the code.) Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Here's the new Attribution Rights clause of the AFL/OSL: Attribution Rights. You must retain, in the Source Code of any Derivative Works that You create, all copyright, patent or trademark notices from the Source Code of the Original Work, as well as any notices of licensing and any descriptive text identified therein as an "Attribution Notice." You must cause the Source Code for any Derivative Works that You create to carry a prominent Attribution Notice reasonably calculated to inform recipients that You have modified the Original Work. /Larry > -Original Message- > From: Forrest J Cavalier III [mailto:forrest@;mibsoftware.com] > Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 8:32 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Copyright > > > > > modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all > > > instances of "RedHat" ? 2. If I am allowed to, to what extent? > > > > The OSD allows licenses to prohibit that. Some jurisdictions > may prohibit it. > > As John Cowan noted separately, trademark law can require > the removal of trademarks. But a copyright notice is not > a trademark. > > But the answers "does the law and license permit it" and > "should it be done" are probably different. > > Of course no one "should" do that. I think there are the > obvious ethical reasons. > > I think there is an important practical consideration: > > By removing all traces of the authorship, you will appear > to be the responsible party, and not a mere re-distributor > of the work. That may result in legal liability you > didn't count on. > > You must be sure to communicate all license terms and > warranty disclaimers, and who is offering the license > and making the disclaimers. Doing anything else is fraud > (usually illegal) or creates liability you don't want to assume. > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the > code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, > whoever owns the code? The question is not well formed. Code, or any other textual work, is not "owned" in the same unitary way that one can own land or own a toothbrush. Instead, there are two people who are relevant: the "copyright owner" and the "owner of a lawful copy". The copyright owner is the creator, or the creator's employer in specified circumstances, or anyone that the creator transfers copyright ownership to. Initially, the copyright owner has five rights: To control making copies of the work To control distribution of the work To control the public performance of the work To control the public display of the work To control the making of derivative works based on the work The owner of a lawful copy (that is, one whose copy was made with the permission of the copyright owner) has all the other rights. He may use the work on one or more computers. He may write a review of the work, using brief quotations from it as a matter of fair use. He may destroy his copy. He may do all the other things that owners may do. Any or all of this can be changed by a valid contract executed between the copyright owner and the owner of a lawful copy. In the case of proprietary software such as Microsoft Word, the owner of a lawful copy is tightly restricted by the EULA, a contract to which he has (presumably) assented. He can only use the software on one computer, gains no ownership rights over the copy at all, and is generally bound and shackled. The GPL is a declaration by the copyright owner that everyone, including the owners of lawful copies, is allowed to copy and/or distribute the work. In addition, everyone is allowed to make derivative works under certain restrictions. Making a derivative work is construed as assent to those restrictions; if you do not obey them, you are usurping the copyright owner's rights. It is essential to the GPL that there be a copyright owner to assert those rights (in court if necessary) so that misuse can be prevented or punished. So the nearest answer to your question is "The copyright owner is whoever it was before; anyone can become an owner of a lawful copy." (AFAICT, the GPL is called "general" because it applies to many different works, and "public" because it is applicable to any member of the public.) IANAL, TINLA. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet." --Brian K. Reid -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Ownership is control to me. Courts would agree. If you waive your ownership, you waive your control...vice versa. Copyright is control whether you like it or not. Second, I cannot understand how you can connect the derivative works clause in the GPL to permissions and rights expected by copyright enforcement courts in this country. Lets say I write a code that disables the function of an F1 key. Even though its an error, I distribute my code under the strict terms that say you cannot fix this problem. I GPL the code. The GPL says that owners can make the modification. Copyright or not, explain to me how I could possibly forbid anyone from making the change? kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 2:16 PM To: Ken Brown Cc: John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown scripsit: > Lets deal with this one at a time. My first question is this-who does the > code belong to once it is GPL'ed? What entity, person, group, troll, > whoever owns the code? The question is not well formed. Code, or any other textual work, is not "owned" in the same unitary way that one can own land or own a toothbrush. Instead, there are two people who are relevant: the "copyright owner" and the "owner of a lawful copy". The copyright owner is the creator, or the creator's employer in specified circumstances, or anyone that the creator transfers copyright ownership to. Initially, the copyright owner has five rights: To control making copies of the work To control distribution of the work To control the public performance of the work To control the public display of the work To control the making of derivative works based on the work The owner of a lawful copy (that is, one whose copy was made with the permission of the copyright owner) has all the other rights. He may use the work on one or more computers. He may write a review of the work, using brief quotations from it as a matter of fair use. He may destroy his copy. He may do all the other things that owners may do. Any or all of this can be changed by a valid contract executed between the copyright owner and the owner of a lawful copy. In the case of proprietary software such as Microsoft Word, the owner of a lawful copy is tightly restricted by the EULA, a contract to which he has (presumably) assented. He can only use the software on one computer, gains no ownership rights over the copy at all, and is generally bound and shackled. The GPL is a declaration by the copyright owner that everyone, including the owners of lawful copies, is allowed to copy and/or distribute the work. In addition, everyone is allowed to make derivative works under certain restrictions. Making a derivative work is construed as assent to those restrictions; if you do not obey them, you are usurping the copyright owner's rights. It is essential to the GPL that there be a copyright owner to assert those rights (in court if necessary) so that misuse can be prevented or punished. So the nearest answer to your question is "The copyright owner is whoever it was before; anyone can become an owner of a lawful copy." (AFAICT, the GPL is called "general" because it applies to many different works, and "public" because it is applicable to any member of the public.) IANAL, TINLA. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet." --Brian K. Reid -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > The inherent standard in court for copyright is ownership and control. The > GPL negates your individual permissions. In addition, you revoke all rights > to control distribution. Sure you can say that there is a copyright, but to > me its like claiming ownership of air. Read the copyright restrictions that > lawyers right for copyrighted work. They insist on 100% control of any and > every alteration and permission on ALL distribution. The GPL is the > opposite. Lawyers do what their clients want them to (within limits). The FSF's lawyer was asked to create a license with only certain restrictions, and so he did. Each and every FSF work says "Copyright the Free Software Foundation". Each and every month, someone decides to ignore that notice and reuse FSF code in their proprietary application. They hear from Eben Moglen, and they end up ripping out the code or playing by the GPL rules. Every time. Not one has tried to go to court yet. *That* is ownership and control. For details, see http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html and http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-13.html -- John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.reutershealth.comhttp://www.ccil.org/~cowan .e'osai ko sarji la lojban. Please support Lojban! http://www.lojban.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
This is part of the reason why describing "intellectual property" as "property" often obscures more than it clarifies. Copyright is not a car or a plot of land; it is a bundle of exclusive rights of the copyright owner: reproduction, distribution, creation of derivative works, and for some works, public performance, public display, and digital transmission. The copyright owner can choose whether to exercise or permit others to exercise any or all of those rights. A copyright holder who licenses his work under the GPL permits others to use some of those rights, provided they follow the conditions of the license. He releases some of the exclusivity, in return for other values he finds meaningful. The copyright owner retains the right to exclude users who don't follow the license's terms, for example, if they try to distribute derived binaries without source code. He also retains the right to distribute or license to others on entirely different terms. Unless an owner dedicates a work to the public domain, releasing all exclusivity, the retained rights are "copyright." Instead of viewing this divisibility as a limitation, one might see it as allowing an author greater freedom: Each author has the option to release work to the public, to permit others to study and modify it, _without_ giving up all rights or all control. --Wendy At 02:04 PM 10/24/02 -0400, Ken Brown wrote: Noel, Thanks for your reply. Let me be clear. There is a big difference between saying that I have a copyright, which is intellectual property ...with legal enforceable rights, and saying that I have a copyright but I choose not to enforce it vs. I have a copyright, but I choose to put my material into a pool whose members have every right to retangle, untangle, rework and modify my work. This is particularly precarious when the GPL itself says that there is unmitigated circulation of the work which is completely opposite of the basic definition of copyright. If you cannot control distribution or modification, you do not have "copyrights." Noel, I put my code in the general public pool because I don't to make any money from it. So I get credit...big deal. Credit is entirely different from enforceable copyrights. Ex: I own a piece of property...but at anytime, anybody in the General Public can use it, dig it up, change it, etc. How can you say I have ownership of the property? kb -Original Message- From: Humphreys, Noel [mailto:nhumphreys@;AkinGump.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 1:38 PM To: 'Ken Brown'; John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Copyright Ken, The GPL is designed to facilitate access, not to discourage "ownership." Someone owns the "property," and that someone is not the person who downloads the source code. GPL-subject software permits wide access and retransmission, because the GPL permits it, not because the "property" lacks an owner. If the downloading person turns out to be the owner, then the downloading person is at liberty to impose conditions on access to his retransmission. The GPL works only because some upstream copyrightholder continues to "own" the copyrighted work that is distributed under the license. Put differently, the downloading person remains subject to the limitations imposed by the GPL because there is a person with superior copyright ownership rights who, presumably, has the legal power to enforce the GPL's terms if the downloader tries to deal with that software in an unauthorized way. Noel D. Humphreys [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://radio.weblogs.com/0114730/ -- Wendy Seltzer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: (212) 715-7815 // f: (212) 715-8192 // m: (914) 374-0613 Associate, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP Adjunct Professor, St. John's University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
"Ken Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The inherent standard in court for copyright is ownership and control. The > GPL negates your individual permissions. In addition, you revoke all rights > to control distribution. Sure you can say that there is a copyright, but to > me its like claiming ownership of air. Read the copyright restrictions that > lawyers right for copyrighted work. They insist on 100% control of any and > every alteration and permission on ALL distribution. The GPL is the > opposite. Hardly the opposite. There's all sorts of control in the GPL. That's why some people don't like it. That's why Microsoft argues against it. For no control, look to something like the MIT license. Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > Ownership is control to me. Courts would agree. If you waive your > ownership, you waive your control...vice versa. No, you don't. Ownership is the right to exercise control, not the duty to do so. If you waive control, you waive it. > Copyright is control > whether you like it or not. Second, I cannot understand how you can connect > the derivative works clause in the GPL to permissions and rights expected by > copyright enforcement courts in this country. Copyright ownership means you have the right to allow or disallow certain things. The GPL allows certain things and disallows others. > Lets say I write a code that disables the function of an F1 key. Even > though its an error, I distribute my code under the strict terms that say > you cannot fix this problem. I GPL the code. The GPL says that owners can > make the modification. Copyright or not, explain to me how I could possibly > forbid anyone from making the change? You can't. Either you distribute under the GPL or you don't (or you distribute some copies under the GPL and others not). -- You are a child of the universe no less John Cowan than the trees and all other acyclichttp://www.reutershealth.com graphs; you have a right to be here.http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --DeXiderata by Sean McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Wendy Seltzer scripsit: [admirable summary snipped] > Unless an owner dedicates a work to the public domain, releasing all > exclusivity, One small point, not really relevant to the rest of your posting. There are people on this list who argue that you can't do that under the existing copyright regime: once in copyright, always in copyright until expiration (assuming we ever *have* a copyright expiration again, that is). -- You are a child of the universe no less John Cowan than the trees and all other acyclichttp://www.reutershealth.com graphs; you have a right to be here.http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --DeXiderata by Sean McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Roblimo wrote: > Do you own all the software on your computer? I own all the > software on > mine. :) You "own" a copy of the software under a license from the copyright and patent holders. You may be restricted from doing certain things with your property by law or by contract. This is as true of software as it is with zoning laws and easements in real property. Absolute freedom doesn't exist. The GPL and other free and open source licenses give you maximum freedom, but not absolute freedom. /Larry Rosen -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Lawrence E. Rosen scripsit: > You "own" a copy of the software under a license from the copyright and > patent holders. Why the horror quotes? Ownership is not absolute _alodium_, right enough, but subject to the copyright owner's enumerated interests, ownership of a lawful copy looks to me much like ownership of any other chattel. You buy a book, you get to read it, scribble on it, burn it, use it to check erosion in a gully. Same story for free software. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague." --Edsger Dijkstra -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujitha, You are way off topic here. This list is not for discussing things like "can I do 'x' if not, 'y' under license 'A' ". Such questions are, ideally decided on advice from lawyers. Confining myself to GPL, you cannot do what you proposed to do - under any license - not even the GPL. GPL'ed works *are* copyrighted by the authors; and the modifications to a GPL'ed work are copyright of modifiers. Not giving due credits to the person who created the work is immoral - simpliciter; and if you are in India (apparently), the author can invoke section 57 (1)(a) of the Indian Copyright Act against you. But, GPL does not *grant* you rights in trade marks, and people at Red Hat do not like it (coz the GPL does not permit it) when you modify a programe created or modified by them and released under the GPL and then go on to claim that it was written by RH. The GPL does not permit you to attribute *modifications* made by you to the original author. That does not mean that you may appropriate the entire work for yourselves. That is inviting trouble. The difference is between saying :- "this was created by X" (about a program written by Y and modified by X) and "This program uses code written by Y and was modified by X" Regards, Mahesh T Pai. Sujita Purushothaman wrote: > Hello, Are discussions on the GPL allowed? :-) I'd like to ask, > when A writes a program and distributes it under the > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: Copyright
Ok John...I give up. You insist that you can own something 100% and relinquish 100% control at the same time. There is not a single legal precedent for this anywhere. So you and I will just have to disagree. You cannot surrender rights to modify and distribute something you have a copyright protected, and then turn around and expect all of its privileges. I agree with Sujita, if I GPL my software called "kb-library" I would not be surprised to expect someone to be selling it as their own with a name change, etc. I would expect it to be GPL of course, and maybe the author will give me credit. But the hell with credit, the GPL gives an individual the legal right to sell my idea as their own. In the end, a court would challenge my claim to "rights" for the product because my transaction will not be able to meet any key thresholds of an author's demand for copyright law protection. Particularly when the license has such vague restrictions for derivative works. kb -Original Message- From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@;reutershealth.com] Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 3:01 PM To: Ken Brown Cc: John Cowan; Sujita Purushothaman; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright Ken Brown scripsit: > Ownership is control to me. Courts would agree. If you waive your > ownership, you waive your control...vice versa. No, you don't. Ownership is the right to exercise control, not the duty to do so. If you waive control, you waive it. > Copyright is control > whether you like it or not. Second, I cannot understand how you can connect > the derivative works clause in the GPL to permissions and rights expected by > copyright enforcement courts in this country. Copyright ownership means you have the right to allow or disallow certain things. The GPL allows certain things and disallows others. > Lets say I write a code that disables the function of an F1 key. Even > though its an error, I distribute my code under the strict terms that say > you cannot fix this problem. I GPL the code. The GPL says that owners can > make the modification. Copyright or not, explain to me how I could possibly > forbid anyone from making the change? You can't. Either you distribute under the GPL or you don't (or you distribute some copies under the GPL and others not). -- You are a child of the universe no less John Cowan than the trees and all other acyclichttp://www.reutershealth.com graphs; you have a right to be here.http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --DeXiderata by Sean McGrath [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Ken Brown scripsit: > Ok John...I give up. You just beat me to it. > You insist that you can own something 100% and > relinquish 100% control at the same time. There is not a single legal > precedent for this anywhere. Tell it to the FSF Marines. > So you and I will just have to disagree. You > cannot surrender rights to modify and distribute something you have a > copyright protected, and then turn around and expect all of its privileges. Waiving rights is not the same as surrendering them. > I agree with Sujita, if I GPL my software called "kb-library" I would not be > surprised to expect someone to be selling it as their own with a name > change, etc. I would expect it to be GPL of course, You have an enforceable right to so expect. No one else has such an enforceable right. > and maybe the author > will give me credit. But the hell with credit, the GPL gives an individual > the legal right to sell my idea as their own. Ideas? *boggle* Ideas have nothing to do with copyright. > In the end, a court would > challenge my claim to "rights" for the product because my transaction will > not be able to meet any key thresholds of an author's demand for copyright > law protection. Nonsense. > Particularly when the license has such vague restrictions > for derivative works. Nothing vague about it. You, sir, are a Bourbon: you have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. We know who pays your bills and why. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.reutershealth.com "Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will have to do will be to send me a telegram asking and it will be done." "Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram from me asking you to do anything, you can put the telegram down as a forgery." -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujita Purushothaman scripsit: > I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under the > GPL, and B modifies it : > 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of A's name? Is B supposed to retain > A's name somewhere? It is customary for the copyright notice to include the author's name (though it does not have to) and GPL forbids tampering with the copyright notice. > For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some > modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of > "RedHat" ? This is a different question -- you not only can but you must. "Red Hat" is a trademark of Red Hat, and you have no right to use it. -- A mosquito cried out in his pain, John Cowan "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" http://www.ccil.org/~cowan The cause of his sorrow http://www.reutershealth.com Was para-dichloro- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Diphenyltrichloroethane.(aka DDT) -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
> This is a great question. I look forward to the group's response on this > one. This is an off topic question, as the GPL has already been accepted. In Europe, I believe this would normally be covered by "moral rights". However, the Red Hat licence attempts to require that you remove all references to Red Hat, even if you distribute an otherwise unmodified version, presumably to protect CD sales of their branded product. IANAL. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujita, This is a great question. I look forward to the group's response on this one. Ken Brown AdTI - Original Message - From: "Sujita Purushothaman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 5:35 AM Subject: Copyright > Hello, >Are discussions on the GPL allowed? :-) > I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under the > > GPL, and B modifies it : > 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of A's name? Is B supposed to retain > > A's name somewhere? For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some > > modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances > of > "RedHat" ? > 2. If I am allowed to, to what extent? > > Thanks! > Rgds, > Sujita > > > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright
Sujita Purushothaman wrote: Hello, Are discussions on the GPL allowed? :-) I'd like to ask, when A writes a program and distributes it under the GPL, and B modifies it : 1. Is B allowed to remove all traces of A's name? Is B supposed to retain A's name somewhere? For example if I were to take RedHat Linux, make some modifications, and distribute my own version, can I remove all instances of "RedHat" ? 2. If I am allowed to, to what extent? This is not a GPL topic: The copyright notice (thus author names) are normally covered by copyright law. IANAL, but I think you cannot modify the credits (or better, you cannot remove credits), indipendent of licenses! ciao giacomo -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright in contracts/licenses (was: Re: [Approval request]CMGPL licence)
On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote: > on Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 03:08:08PM -0500, Russell Nelson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > > For better or worse, the GPL is a document copyrighted by the Free > > Software Foundation and they have not granted permission to make > > derivative works. > > I have my own doubts regarding this statment. > > Legal contracts are, in one analysis, functional documents, and as such, > the language that exists, if it's functional, or if the functional > characteristics cannot be divorced from the expressive mode, would > likely not be covered by copyright. Then why is source code covered by copyright? Is source code not "functional" in the same way legal contracts are? Aren't legal contracts just source code for the machine we call society? Brian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I'm a newcomer.Could tell me what the DMCA is? good grief. your search engine must have flooded its carbeurator. cause mine came up with a bazillion hits with just 'dmca'. (yes, exactly 1 bazillion hits, no more, no less.) ;) but to give you a jump start, I think the most relevant site is the one that shows the real implications of DMCA, namely that people can go to jail for knowing too much: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010808_eff_sklyarov_alert.html you might want to go to the www.eff.org website and read for a while. They have a number of articles that may be of interest. Greg -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
I'm a newcomer.Could tell me what the DMCA is? : It's common practice to quote part of the e-mail to which you are : replying, as I am doing here, in order to maintain some context in the : conversation. : : It is also polite to set your mailer to not send HTML mail to a : mailing list such as this one. : : [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : : > Many thanks for seeing what I was trying to say. When I heards of this open : > source movement I was intrigued to see how they could do what they do without : > intellectual property protection, a institution that they attack so much. How : > much of a surprise then was it to discover that they actually used copyright : > towhat they want to do. It was merely the use of copyright in a different : > way. From my uniniated perspective, it appears to be that your complaint is : > against the use by others of copyright rather than copyright itself, but that : > this distinction has been ignored and has turned into a witchhunt against : > copyright. : : I hope you are learning that the truth is more nuanced than the straw : man you are describing. I've been a member of the free software : community for a long time, and I am not aware of any witchhunt against : copyright. I think there is a movement both within and without the : free software community which one could fairly describe as a witchhunt : against software patents. But copyright, software patents, and : hardware patents are not the same thing. : : There is also a movement both within and without the free software : community to retain certain aspects of copyright which are being : challenged by laws like the DMCA, such as the right to fair use. But : I don't think there are too many people who feel that copyright should : be abolished in toto. : : Richard Stallman does not speak for everybody in the free software : movement. But most people do listen to him. Here are some comments : of his on copyright, written in 1996: : http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html : There are more papers on that web site on IP issues. : : > how can I ensure that I get e-mailed further discussions on this list? : : You can subscribe to it: : http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html#list : : Ian : -- : license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 èb‹˜j(ër¢êßÂç²j(r‰šuÚ޲ƆÛiÿùšŠ\š†Š ¢ibqéìyجrë,j·!Š÷¢±«a¶ÚýÊòŸ Ü¢o܂&âŸ÷³šYœ‚-
Re: copyright discussion
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > how can I ensure that I get e-mailed further discussions on this list? JEETUN6, You can subscribe to this list by sending an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] There are archives of this list somewhere (a link has been published on the list -- I know -- that doesn't help much), and one of the "members" of the list has started a summary of "significant" open source licenses. When I find that link I'll post it for you. For me, the discussion on this list is sometimes confusing and hard to follow, as there are quite a few different licenses and different terms associated with each. In answer to some of the questions in your previous post, there are restrictions on further use in some sense, and sometimes a fee can be charged. I hesitate to describe either of those, for fear of stating them incorrectly, but I'll make a brief try. Restrictions: most copyleft licenses restrict you in that if you create a derived work from a copylefted work, you must license the derived work under the same license as the original work from which it was derived. The intent (as I see it) is to prevent someone from taking freely licensed code and making it proprietary. Fee: a reasonable fee for copying can be charged, or a fee for other services (like support or a warranty) (and maybe even a fee for the software product), but it is subject to the natural limiting effect that someone can obtain the software from anyone else who has a copy for free (or a different copying fee set by them). As someone else has requested, please adjust your email client so it sends email as plain text. If you don't know how to do this, try checking: http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Test/AvoidHTMLinEmail. If you are using an email client without instructions listed there, write back and I'll see if I (or someone else) can help you. regards, Randy Kramer -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
>I did not read Praveen's post as any sort of attack upon us. But rather it >was in response to a common attitude among many in this community that >copyright is evil. If it is truly evil, then let's refuse to even consider >using its powers, by placing all of our software I wonder if perhaps it were posted due to miscontruing my post? I was not denegrating copyright, merely trying to illustrate what pwers it doesn't have, by mentioning examples just on either side of the thin line. Most open source licences are not shrink-wrap, and do not rely upon the, to me somewhat spurious, concept that I don't own my copy of windows and therefore have no integral right to use it. This applies to almost all commercial software. Open-source licenses (notably the GPL) mostly rely upon implicit acceptance by exercising rights which they cannot get from anywhere else (generally) - if they do not exercise these rights the GPL does not come into it. If they do, they must abide by the conditions. End pointless summary and clarification of previous points. SamBC -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
>I don't pretend to fully understand your 'movement'. I konw the principle >behind copytleft: it is a means to an end. But as I understand it, within >your belief that everyone is free to copy software, there are restrictions on >further use and a flat fee is payable. Am I misguided. You do not accept the >principle of an absolutely free public domain. My goodness!! I think here you are somewhat mislead. The OSI (and the FSF, a seperate and very different entity) fully support copyright and the protections of an author's IP. People are not free to copy software unless the copyright holder says so. However, we promote the use of software licenses which allow this, as well as allowing modifications under various terms, and the distribution of these modifications. Note that when I say 'we' I refer to the public involved in the movement. I do not represent the OSI. Public domain is a knotty legal point, varying between jurisdictions. It is believed that in some jurisdictions that one cannot surrender ones rights into the public domain. And I'm not sure where the flat fee came from. Certainly when we talk about free software we use it in the sense of the french "libre" - free speech. Not as in the french "gratuit" - free beer. People can charge money for free software, but it tends not to do much good as one person can always buy it and then redistribute as much as they like. Consequently the only times free software is often sold is in convenience packs, prepackaged cd-roms, and the charge is small, reflecting only the cost of the media and the time to copy it, with a little profit. No-one is completely free to copy all software. It is the believe of some that operating software (drivers, operating systems, etc) should always be free & open, and that this would benefit the world economy. Others disagree, all within the movements of Open Source and Free Software >I was not trying to insult you but was merely trying to provide some balance. >Often in a frenzy against something, one's analysis can be self-serving >rather than balanced. I was just shocked to see how one-sided the discussion >seemed to be and thought an alternative may have been appreciated. Well, although your reasoning was perhaps misguided, I think the contribution was still beneficial... Sam Barnett-Cormack -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
On Monday 10 September 2001 10:31 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Many thanks for seeing what I was trying to say. When I heards of this open > source movement I was intrigued to see how they could do what they do > without intellectual property protection, a institution that they attack so > much. How much of a surprise then was it to discover that they actually > used copyright towhat they want to do. It was merely the use of copyright > in a different way. From my uniniated perspective, it appears to be that > your complaint is against the use by others of copyright rather than > copyright itself, but that this distinction has been ignored and has turned > into a witchhunt against copyright. The "community" of Open Source developers are not all of one mind. Far from it. There are dozens of different philosophies and viewpoints on the licensing and distribution of software here. The common perception is that the term "Open Source" succeeded in the public where "Free Software" did not, because of the word "free". Going out on a fragile limb here, I will assert that that is NOT true. The reason "Free Software" was not a widely accepted concept was that the Free Software Foundation website presents one single philosophy, liberally strewn with the pronoun "we". For a newcomer, it seems that Free Software is only for those that think one certain way. Furthermore, the philosophy of the FSF is defined in self-referential terms. In other words, it doesn't make sense to outsiders. For example, there is one article entitled "Why Software Should Not Have Owners", which is considered one of the core arguments in favor of Free software, but it is combined with dozens of other articles urging folks to license/copyright their works in certain ways. Open Source takes a philosophy-neutral stance. We don't care who you voted for in the last election, what church you go to, what community organizations you belong to, or even if you think Richard Stallman is wise or nuts. Open Source is not about approving people, it's about approving software. And that's why it succeeded in capturing the public's eye. To be balanced and fair, there are many on the Free Software side who believe that "Open Source" is a sellout of principles, that it is better to have few people standing up for freedom than a lot of people standing up for pragmatism. There are a multitude of viewpoints here. My viewpoint is different from many others. I write Open Source software simply because I want to share my works with other people. Unrestrictive licenses allow my code to be used by anyone and for any purpose. Since this is the code that I write in my spare time, and as a hobby, it doesn't matter that I am not earning any revenue off of it, or that someone could fork off a more successful version of it and siphon away my userbase. I don't share because I am supposed, I share because I want to. Yes, there are those here that are on a "witchhunt" to destroy copyright. But they are not the only ones here. I would recommend at the book "Open Sources", by O'Reilley. It consists of many articles about Open Source and particular Open Source projects, each article by someone different, and each with a different philosophy. It has articles by those wanting to save the world from copyright, others by those actually running profitable businesses based on Open Source software, and those who are just having fun. You can read it online at "http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/toc.html";. > how can I ensure that I get e-mailed further discussions on this list? Simply join the list. See www.opensource.org for more info. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
It's common practice to quote part of the e-mail to which you are replying, as I am doing here, in order to maintain some context in the conversation. It is also polite to set your mailer to not send HTML mail to a mailing list such as this one. [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Many thanks for seeing what I was trying to say. When I heards of this open > source movement I was intrigued to see how they could do what they do without > intellectual property protection, a institution that they attack so much. How > much of a surprise then was it to discover that they actually used copyright > towhat they want to do. It was merely the use of copyright in a different > way. From my uniniated perspective, it appears to be that your complaint is > against the use by others of copyright rather than copyright itself, but that > this distinction has been ignored and has turned into a witchhunt against > copyright. I hope you are learning that the truth is more nuanced than the straw man you are describing. I've been a member of the free software community for a long time, and I am not aware of any witchhunt against copyright. I think there is a movement both within and without the free software community which one could fairly describe as a witchhunt against software patents. But copyright, software patents, and hardware patents are not the same thing. There is also a movement both within and without the free software community to retain certain aspects of copyright which are being challenged by laws like the DMCA, such as the right to fair use. But I don't think there are too many people who feel that copyright should be abolished in toto. Richard Stallman does not speak for everybody in the free software movement. But most people do listen to him. Here are some comments of his on copyright, written in 1996: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html There are more papers on that web site on IP issues. > how can I ensure that I get e-mailed further discussions on this list? You can subscribe to it: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html#list Ian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
Many thanks for seeing what I was trying to say. When I heards of this open source movement I was intrigued to see how they could do what they do without intellectual property protection, a institution that they attack so much. How much of a surprise then was it to discover that they actually used copyright towhat they want to do. It was merely the use of copyright in a different way. From my uniniated perspective, it appears to be that your complaint is against the use by others of copyright rather than copyright itself, but that this distinction has been ignored and has turned into a witchhunt against copyright. how can I ensure that I get e-mailed further discussions on this list?
Re: copyright discussion
I don't pretend to fully understand your 'movement'. I konw the principle behind copytleft: it is a means to an end. But as I understand it, within your belief that everyone is free to copy software, there are restrictions on further use and a flat fee is payable. Am I misguided. You do not accept the principle of an absolutely free public domain. I was not trying to insult you but was merely trying to provide some balance. Often in a frenzy against something, one's analysis can be self-serving rather than balanced. I was just shocked to see how one-sided the discussion seemed to be and thought an alternative may have been appreciated.
Re: copyright discussion
On Monday 10 September 2001 08:46 pm, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. wrote: > Hmm...Public domain was dropped? Not sure what you mean by that. I suspect > the law makers in Washington, DC would beg to differ despite the enactment > of the DMCA and the Sony Bono law. I meant that it was dropped from the list criteria for determining whether a piece of software is Open Source or not. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: copyright discussion
Hmm...Public domain was dropped? Not sure what you mean by that. I suspect the law makers in Washington, DC would beg to differ despite the enactment of the DMCA and the Sony Bono law. In the context of software (software, as a practical matter, has a short life span as far as literary works go), software licenses may be doing more to erode the vitality of the public domain than changes to the Copyright Act. There are some who might argue that the public domain is a constitutional constituent of IP law. Hence, the two must live together, at least theoretically. To some extent, this philosophical debate is frustrated by semantics and unclear meaning. There is still a great deal of fuzzy thinking as to what "open source" really means. Whether open source is more properly viewed as a frontal attack upon IP, and an exaltation of the Commons is a question that gets varying answers. I think, for example, a nuanced argument concerning the philosophical basis of free software could lead you in an entirely different direction than the less "restrictive" open source software development model might lead you. Even so, I agree with your main point because it is consistent with my understanding of Art. I sec. 8 cl. 8 of the U.S. Const. But, to be faithful to the argument that IP is really a means to a better end, one should discourage arguments on both sides of this debate: namely, no IP is evil arguments and no IP is wonderful (empowering) arguments either. Of course, this is really an end-run on the debate, but it's just as well due to the debate's complexity and time-consuming quality. Rod Dixon > -Original Message- > From: David Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 10:50 PM > To: Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: copyright discussion > > > On Monday 10 September 2001 07:13 pm, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. wrote: > > Who on this list beside myself wondered whether Praveen posted > his message > > on this list without consideration of why most of us support > open source? > > Or, did I miss something? > > Yes, you did miss something. > > That particular set of IP known as copyright is *crucial* to Open Source. > Now more than ever since "public domain" got dropped from the > appoved list. > Praveen's post essentially said that IP is empowering. Even a cursory > examination at the GPL will reveal how utterly useless it would > be without > the empowerment of copyright. > > IP means that you and I have the legal right to enforce some of > your wishes > with regards to your software. That includes the right to enforce > publication > upon distribution, the right to prohibit the use of your name or > organization's name for endorsement purposes, and the right to > prohibit users > from excising political views you have included in your license. > > At the least, Open Source advocates are saying that some right > granted to the > author exclusively are *indeed* appropriate and justified. > > I did not read Praveen's post as any sort of attack upon us. But > rather it > was in response to a common attitude among many in this community that > copyright is evil. If it is truly evil, then let's refuse to even > consider > using its powers, by placing all of our software under as > unrestrictive of > licenses as possible. But if it isn't evil, but merely a tool, then let's > stop condemning the tool just because there are some who abuse it. > > -- > David Johnson > ___ > http://www.usermode.org > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
On Monday 10 September 2001 07:13 pm, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. wrote: > Who on this list beside myself wondered whether Praveen posted his message > on this list without consideration of why most of us support open source? > Or, did I miss something? Yes, you did miss something. That particular set of IP known as copyright is *crucial* to Open Source. Now more than ever since "public domain" got dropped from the appoved list. Praveen's post essentially said that IP is empowering. Even a cursory examination at the GPL will reveal how utterly useless it would be without the empowerment of copyright. IP means that you and I have the legal right to enforce some of your wishes with regards to your software. That includes the right to enforce publication upon distribution, the right to prohibit the use of your name or organization's name for endorsement purposes, and the right to prohibit users from excising political views you have included in your license. At the least, Open Source advocates are saying that some right granted to the author exclusively are *indeed* appropriate and justified. I did not read Praveen's post as any sort of attack upon us. But rather it was in response to a common attitude among many in this community that copyright is evil. If it is truly evil, then let's refuse to even consider using its powers, by placing all of our software under as unrestrictive of licenses as possible. But if it isn't evil, but merely a tool, then let's stop condemning the tool just because there are some who abuse it. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: copyright discussion
Who on this list beside myself wondered whether Praveen posted his message on this list without consideration of why most of us support open source? Or, did I miss something? Rod > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 3:55 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: copyright discussion > > > I see that there has been some discussion and assertion about the powers > bestowed by copyright. The focus has been on what it apparently > allows the > owner to prevent 'legitimate' users to do. I do not know which > jurisdiction > allows the copyright holder to prevent the public reading of a > book. If such > reading is a performance due to the artisitic input of the > performer then the > performer needs the consent of the copyright holder. And rightly > so since can > you imagine how much of an affront to your personhood would > result if someone > destroyed the essence of the meaning of your work through an unauthorised > performance. > > Don't look at copyright as a restrictive thing. Think of all the cultural > property that we enjoy by virtue of our IP laws. We experience > the work of > others that we would not have were it not for the power of IP. > Don't think of > IP as a noose around your neck but as a source of empowerment. > And remember > that examples can be provided of outrageous uses of IP for frivilous > purposes, but that is not the fault of IP as such, but is the > problem of the > use by others of the system. > > I'd be interested to know what others make of this. Contrary to > the norm, I > am an IP lawyer who actually appreciates IP. > > Praveen Jeetun > > > Copyright law empowers an author to restrict others from copying the > > > > work. A user therefore wants the license to allow the user to copy > > > > the work. In software terms, copying occurs when the user's hard > > > > drive or RAM receives or records the software, for example. > > > > > >Copyright law *does* specify that such copying essential to use is not > > >considered copying, and is not a reserved right. We've had this out on > this > > >list before. > > > > > > > U.S. and a number of other countries' copyright law indeed permits as an > > exception the limited ability of making of a copy in the utilization of > > program on a machine. See section 117 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Laws of > > many other countries do not provide such an explicit exception. > Moreover, > > most countries in the world do not provide as wide a fair use > privilege as > > the U.S or recognize implied license (or if so, an express > license likely > > trumps). > > > > > > > > > > >Copyright law does state that the copyright holder does not perforce > > >reserve > > >the right to "use" the work, however that may apply to the > work. They may > > >not forbid people to read a book, but they may forbid them to > read it in > > >public. They may not forbid people to *privately* perform a play, or > > >rehearse it, but they may forbid them from performing in > public. Get the > > >idea. > > > > > > > AFAIK in almost all countries making copies has no "public" limitation - > > whether the copy is "private" or "public" is irrelevant. > > > > >IANAL, but I have had definite answers on these areas... > > > > > > > > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyright discussion
On Mon, Sep 10, 2001 at 03:54:51PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I see that there has been some discussion and assertion about the powers > bestowed by copyright. The focus has been on what it apparently allows the > owner to prevent 'legitimate' users to do. I do not know which jurisdiction I wasn't going to advertise this on the license-discuss list, but in light of all of the recent legal banter, I think many readers of this list might appreciate it. Slightly different topic, but related to copyright and free software. I've recently begun a new list for the discussion of legal issues for writers of p2p software, node/client operators, indexing service operators, and others with an interest in peer-to-peer services. It is designed for constructive discussion about how we can separate technology from its uses, and in the end help to advance this field. The list is at http://dtype.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-legal/ So far, about 40 people have joined, including free software authors from several of the major projects, a lawyer or two, and several other free speech interested parties. It is so far relatively quiet, but I'm still recruiting the right crowd for what will hopefully be productive discussion in the future. The list is _not_ for legal advice, but rather for peer discussion. Lawyers are invited too, of course. This will be my only post regarding p2p-legal to this list. -drew -- M. Drew Streib <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://dtype.org/ FSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| Linux International <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> freedb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| SourceForge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP signature
Re: Copyright & License Questions
This is not legal advice. No lawyer-client is established. etc etc - Original Message - From: "SamBC" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "John Cowan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 2:07 PM Subject: RE: Copyright & License Questions > > -Original Message- > > From: John Cowan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > > > > > 7) If I had a client who hired me to do a customized and > > closed-version of > > > the Open Source software, what license would enable me to do so? > > > > > > Almost any except the GPL. > > Wrong. If you are the copyright [sic] holder, you are free to re-license as you see > fit. You cannot revoke a license like the GPL (although a license may have > revocation clauses, I feel the OSD wouldn't permit it), so you cannot stop > people who already have/are distributing the GPL version, but *you* (and > only you, or those expressly given an alternative license permitting them to > do so) can make a new version non-GPL. > Just to clarify here on the multi-licensing issue for the benefit of new members to the list...To be able to freely multi-license without any restriction, the copyright holder must be the holder of the copyright of all the code. If the copyright holder is the holder of the copyright of a derived work, then that copyright holder may be limited in relicensing his/her derivative work copyright by virtue of the license terms associated with the original code. > > SamBC > >
Re: Copyright & License Questions
On Thursday 21 June 2001 09:28 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 1) I've read that one should copyright their work and from there choose an > Open Source license. Isn't copyrighting, though, against the concept of > Open Source? Any software you create is automatically copyrighted by you. In order to abandon this copyright (place it into the public domain) you must go through incredible legal contortions. It's just not worth it, and there is even debate as to whether it's even possible. Keep it copyrighted. If it were practical to place your works into the public domain, you are opening yourself up to lawsuits. No one now owns the work, yet you are still the author. Someone can sue you for damages through misuse of the software (never abandon any property that could cause damage, no matter how remote the chance). By keeping a copyright on it, you can ensure that a warranty disclaimer follows the software. (personal opinion: if it's commercial software, you really should offer a warranty with it, but only to paying customers. The disclaimer would still be in effect for those not purchasing the software directly from you) Morally, the open source world has a bit of disagreement over the question of software ownership. The FSF has an article on why software should not be owned. Right next to an article that says software should be copyrighted and placed under a copyleft license. It makes sense if you use the right colored glasses :-) If you wish to really place your work in the public domain, so the next best thing. Use the BSD or MIT license instead. The only thing they require is to keep the copyright and warranty disclaimers intact. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> > And suppose you later retract your abandonment? What's to > prevent that? > > > What's to prevent my "retracting" any abandonment of any sort? > If I put my chair on the street with a signed notice saying "I, the > owner of this chair, abandon all rights to it" (neglecting for the > moment the question of littering laws), do you suggest that someone > couldn't rely on that notice and take the chair away? And if > I tried to > replevy the chair, don't you think I would be laughed out of court? Perhaps. But as a potential user of that chair (read "potential user of that software"), are you willing to risk that the judge will laugh? I'm really not actually concerned with potential users as much as I am concerned with those who will create and distribute derivative works of that software. I'd probably advise any client to steer away from incorporating software he found littered on the streets. My suggestion is, use software that comes with a reasonable license. /Larry Rosen
Re: Copyright & License Questions
Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: > And suppose you later retract your abandonment? What's to prevent that? What's to prevent my "retracting" any abandonment of any sort? If I put my chair on the street with a signed notice saying "I, the owner of this chair, abandon all rights to it" (neglecting for the moment the question of littering laws), do you suggest that someone couldn't rely on that notice and take the chair away? And if I tried to replevy the chair, don't you think I would be laughed out of court? But I suppose one could concoct a proper license of this sort, the Permissive Public License (PPL). See my next posting. > The term "public domain" specifically includes works whose copyright has > expired, and works for which copyright is not allowed (e.g., US > government works). Fair enough. What else it might or might not include is not apparent from Title 17. -- There is / one art || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> Nobody can "do away" with their copyright "by providing a notice that > places the work in the public domain." > >> No, one can't. But I don't see why an author cannot abandon >> their Title 17 rights explicitly, just as any other property right can >> be abandoned explicitly. This, surely, is what is generally >> understood by a dedication to the public domain, although it >> is not the "public domain" as that term is used in Title 17. >> Note that Title 17 nowhere defines the term. And suppose you later retract your abandonment? What's to prevent that? What's to reassure someone using your "abandoned" software that you won't later retract? Is your word "abandoned" merely a loose way of saying "I license everyone to use"? The term "public domain" specifically includes works whose copyright has expired, and works for which copyright is not allowed (e.g., US government works). I know that people "generally" understand the term "public domain." Be careful of general understandings in legal matters. /Larry
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> -Original Message- > From: Dave J Woolley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > From: SamBC [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > > > > Wrong. If you are the license holder, you are free to re-license as you > > see > > > [DJW:] I assume a typo for "copyright holder". (I should > proof read better as well, I typed "sum" for "some" earlier!) > [DJW:] You are quite right - my apologies to anyone I confused, I really ought to read what I type. SamBC
Re: Copyright & License Questions
Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: > Nobody can "do away" with their copyright "by providing a notice that > places the work in the public domain." No, one can't. But I don't see why an author cannot abandon their Title 17 rights explicitly, just as any other property right can be abandoned explicitly. This, surely, is what is generally understood by a dedication to the public domain, although it is not the "public domain" as that term is used in Title 17. Note that Title 17 nowhere defines the term. -- There is / one art || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> -Original Message- > From: John Cowan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > > > 7) If I had a client who hired me to do a customized and > closed-version of > > the Open Source software, what license would enable me to do so? > > > Almost any except the GPL. Wrong. If you are the license holder, you are free to re-license as you see fit. You cannot revoke a license like the GPL (although a license may have revocation clauses, I feel the OSD wouldn't permit it), so you cannot stop people who already have/are distributing the GPL version, but *you* (and only you, or those expressly given an alternative license permitting them to do so) can make a new version non-GPL. SamBC
Re: Copyright & License Questions
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 1) I've read that one should copyright their work and from there choose an > Open Source license. Isn't copyrighting, though, against the concept of > Open Source? No. A public-domain work is Open Source, but most Open Source works have copyrights. By copyrighting (or more accurately: by not abandoning copyright, since a document is copyrighted as soon as it is written down), and then licensing away most of the rights, we can keep control of whichever ones we consider to be important. > 2) If I were to assign a copyright, is it a matter of simply placing a > notice of authorship and year? Is that enough in terms of a legal standpoint? Distinguish between claiming copyright on one's own work and assigning copyright to someone else. To claim copyright on your own work, it suffices to say "Copyright ", and even this is not required by law. However, it ensures that no one can claim "I didn't know the work was copyrighted". To assign copyright to someone else, except in the case of a work done by an employee in the scope of their regular employment, a written instrument is needed. No particular form is required. Consult a lawyer. > 3) When I choice an Open Source license or a hybrid of some sort, does one > just simply revise/copy a template of an existing license or just write > a new one and insert this along with the software? Some licenses like the GPL are fixed texts; just provide them with the software (usually in a file called COPYING). The BSD license is a template: fill in your name and provide it with the software, usually in a file called LICENSE. > 4) Basically are there any legal stamps that make the copyright and chosen > licenses enforceable? And, what makes them legitimate to the community? They are enforceable if a court enforces them. So far, that hasn't happened. > 6) If I wanted to provide proprietary modules/add-ons to the Open Source > software, what license would enable me to do so? Almost any except the GPL. > 7) If I had a client who hired me to do a customized and closed-version of > the Open Source software, what license would enable me to do so? Almost any except the GPL. -- There is / one art || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> > Some authors are comfortable not to have any control > whatsoever over how > > their work is used, distributed and modified. They can "do > away" with > > their > > copyright by providing a notice that places the work in the > public domain. > > Such software, which legally speaking is no longer > copyrighted, classifies > > as Open Source software as well. > > > I believe sum countries will not allow material to be > forced into the public domain; one may have to wait for > 50 to 70 years after the death of the author before it > lapses into the public domain. Nobody can "do away" with their copyright "by providing a notice that places the work in the public domain." Please don't perpetuate this myth. Dave is correct. You have to wait for the statutory time for the work to enter the public domain. /Larry Rosen
RE: Copyright & License Questions
> From: J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Some authors are comfortable not to have any control whatsoever over how > their work is used, distributed and modified. They can "do away" with > their > copyright by providing a notice that places the work in the public domain. > Such software, which legally speaking is no longer copyrighted, classifies > as Open Source software as well. > I believe sum countries will not allow material to be forced into the public domain; one may have to wait for 50 to 70 years after the death of the author before it lapses into the public domain. -- --- DISCLAIMER - Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of BTS.
Re: Copyright & License Questions
[Please use plain text for email rather than HTML] On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:28:25 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >I'm new to these open source issues. So the following questions may be >quite naive: >1) I've read that one should copyright their work and from there choose an >Open Source license. This isn't completely true: the public domain is an exception. >Isn't copyrighting, though, against the concept of Open Source? No. Copyright provides the legal framework via which an author can control how a work can be used, distributed and modified. For instance, as an author I can require that if binaries built from (modified versions of) source code I wrote are distributed, that the source must be made available as well (the GPL is a license along these lines). The Free Software Foundation has a lot of relevant reading materials online at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ . Some authors are comfortable not to have any control whatsoever over how their work is used, distributed and modified. They can "do away" with their copyright by providing a notice that places the work in the public domain. Such software, which legally speaking is no longer copyrighted, classifies as Open Source software as well. >2) If I were to assign a copyright, is it a matter of simply placing a >notice of authorship and year? Is that enough in terms of a legal >standpoint? Yes, AFAIK in many countries (in particular, signatories to the Berne convention on copyright) copyright is gained by the creation of a work, and no formal registration of copyright or such is necessary. >3) When I choice an Open Source license or a hybrid of some sort, does one >just simply revise/copy a template of an existing license or just write a >new one and insert this along with the software? You should copy the template. Writing new licenses that comply with the Open Source definition is a tricky job, and should not be undertaken lightly. >7) If I had a client who hired me to do a customized and closed-version of >the Open Source software, what license would enable me to do so? A license places constraints on others than the copyright holder. As long as you are the sole copyright holder of your software, the license on your software does not prevent you in any way to make closed-source customized versions of it. If you expect not to remain the sole copyright holder, you may want to consider a license like the BSD or MIT one which allow proprietary versions of your software to be made. HTH, Ray -- Tevens ben ik van mening dat Nederland overdekt dient te worden.
Re: Copyright on Collections
>From the "Just Had to Make a Correction Department (JHMCD)": > I don't know of a single distribution that asserts a compilation copyright, > though. It would annoy too many people. Err, wrong on both counts. Red Hat Linux has a compilation copyright that doesn't annoy people. Here is the top of the "COPYING" file at the top level of every RHL CD: * The following copyright applies to the Red Hat Linux compilation and any portions of Red Hat Linux/Intel it does not conflict with. Whenever this policy does conflict with the copyright of any individual portion of Red Hat Linux, it does not apply. * GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 . . . --Donnie -- Donnie Barnes http://www.donniebarnes.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Bah." Challenge Diversity. Ignore People. Live Life. Use Linux. 879. V. Bats, when dipped in batter and deep fried, still taste pretty bad.
Re: Copyright on Collections
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > You can copyright a compilation, yes, but I don't see how the > copyright could be made to apply to the individual works. So, you > could prevent someone from making a knock-off copy of Red Hat > without restricting Linux distributions in general. Exactly. You used Red Hat as an example, but I imagined that this was what Corel was going to pull out of their hat when the license fiasco hit the fan. > I don't know of a single distribution that asserts a compilation > copyright, though. It would annoy too many people. Naturally. However, it would be better than doing what SuSE did, which was to make the distribution rely on a piece of proprietary software to run. YaST was licensed to keep people from simply reselling SuSE without permission. -- ((lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x))) (quote (lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x) -- A LISP quine written by Seth David Schoen +++ath
Re: Copyright on Collections
From: Nick Moffitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > What, then, about the copyrights on collections? Couldn't a > distributor easily say that the distribution being put out is a > collection of independently licensed works, and license it in some > restrictive way? You can copyright a compilation, yes, but I don't see how the copyright could be made to apply to the individual works. So, you could prevent someone from making a knock-off copy of Red Hat without restricting Linux distributions in general. I don't know of a single distribution that asserts a compilation copyright, though. It would annoy too many people. Thanks Bruce
Re: Copyright
Copyright laws apply to the actual source code (and thus binary) of the software because it is a literary work, see the test below. If I set on the task of writing a spreadsheet and end up with Excel, what are the chances that I was copying Excel one for one? On the other hand, I might write it all anew, but attempt to mimick some aspects, like the user interface. This issue is still not clearly resolved, and is derived from laws protecting design, which are different than text (the actual code). Last, there are laws that protect an assembly of works, even if these works are not protected by copyright. For example, if I publish a collection of all the works of Shakespear finished on odd years, I can claim copyright to this particular collection, but not the works themselves. As far as algorithms go, neither is good enough. You cannot copyright the source, because there might be a different way of writing the algorithm which does not look alike. You cannot copyright the design, because there is no recognition of algorithms as design. The only course of action is patent. That is why so many software products are protected by patent. The change from literature to non-literature is subject to a very simple test. Suppose the two of us set to write a story about a shared experience. We would end up with completely different texts, unless one of us copied. But if we attempted to write a shopping list for computer parts, we would probably end up with a very similar list. Im the first case, each one is contributing unique experience, knowledge and skill, and thus creating a work that must be protected. In the second case, there is nothing unique and there are so many ways of writing the same shopping list. > > This is true all over the world with only subtle differences. Copyright > > laws are very similar between nations and automatically apply across > > borders by international treaties. > > In what way are legal documents different from programs (programs are, > or were initially, covered by virtue of being literature)? At what > point does a piece of writing change from literature to non-literature > under the scheme you have? > > -- > Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) > http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ > EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/
RE: Copyright of Facts
Great! I certainly have no idea about the technicalities of your example. I would think that we are now looking at the same sort of thing that governs creation of dramatic works from novels, and vice versa. Also, continuing of story lines and such in works of another. You've opened my eyes to something that I think is key - the practice that develops around copyright and the use of works of others, how that differs from the technicalities of copyright and its application. For open-source development and licensing, the practice aspect seems crucial. 1. Technicalities. In your example of a samurai fighting game, the game in which the story line and elements are intertwined in the implementation is certainly more vulnerable if there is found to be infringement or even an allegation of infringement that must be cured quickly. The game which has a data-driven engine with separable story lines is certainly easier to use in curing an IP problem with one of the scenarios. I find it very easy to believe that a court would hear the complaint in this matter and litigation could be very difficult to sidestep. And settlement could be costly. Notice that we don't care here which technical aspect of copyright or other IP protection is involved. It doesn't take much to realize that there is likely some cause of action in the scenario you provide. 2. Practice. Out of this discussion, it seems to me that a valuable way of looking at the copyright system as it has evolved over the years is to notice that it encourages practices by which people prudently seek licenses and permissions to ensure that their employment of the works of others is unencumbered. That is, litigation is not intended to be the first recourse. I say it is clearly not in most people's self-interest to be an involved party in some breakthrough court decision in the IP area. And when there is a dispute, my sense is that the preference of the courts is for settlement by agreement of the parties. (The presence of statutory penalties just adds more encouragement for permissions, I'd say.) It seems to me that the suggestions Brad Templeton gives for the etiquette of permissions in the use of e-mails, mail-list submissions, newsgroup postings, as well as web-page citation and linking are all useful in this regard. I've had an author of a book request permission to mention a work of mine in his bibliography, and in other cases I was pleased to discover that I had been acknowledged in some way in the work of another. I have also sought and received permissions from others. I've never been in the awkward situation of being denied such permission, so I can't speak to that. Oops, not true. I refrained from citing something because a party involved asked me not to, even though I was pretty sure there was no IP issue. That was recent and it involved people collaborating from different cultures. In this case it was important to me that the sensibilities of my Japanese colleagues be honored. I also created some CP/M-80 software that I essentially put out as binary freeware. Later, another fellow redistributed this software privately for a fee, along with documentation that he'd developed. I had no idea about this. And I wasn't particularly helpful when, after-the-fact, he called me for technical support because of some problems his customers had run into in areas of my work that were incomplete. My point is that even when actionable IP rights infringement seems unlikely, there is a certain civility and accommodation that supports the open space in which we are able to contribute and also enjoy the contributions of others. I see this as consistent with the spirit of modern copyright law as well as the constitutional objective. In a way, the GPL as employed in the GNU project fosters a particular community of practice that seems beautifully consistent with the values and ideals of Richard Stall man in creating the playpen in which he wanted to practice computing with others. And I don't think we can ever rely on precision crafting of a license statement to remove the need for civil behavior in dealing with the IP concerns of others and of ourselves. Ultimately, it all comes down to trust and being trustworthy. All that messy gray cloudy uncertain risky-feeling stuff. Thank you for your thought-provoking inquiry. -- Dennis -- Dennis E. Hamilton InfoNuovo mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] tel. +1-206-779-9430 (gsm) fax. +1-425-793-0283 http://www.infonuovo.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alex Nicolaou Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 23:33 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Alex Nicolaou; Bruce Perens; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright of Facts [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2.3 You suggested that the map data might be licensed under GPL. OK, so > the compila
Re: Copyright of Facts
Angelo Schneider wrote: > Alex Nicolaou wrote: > > If I take a photograph, I am clearly permitted to copyright it - it is > > "art", and its composition reflects how I chose to record the facts (the > > real objects in the photograph). It is difficult or impossible for > > someone else to take the same photograph in the same conditions, so if > > someone else claims to have taken an identical picture it would be easy > > to win my case in court. > > What do you want to win in court? > > Your photo is yours! So every reprint or whtsoever is copyrightred by > you. > > But HIS PHOTO IS HIS! > There is no case in court! > There is nothing to win!!! If his photo is absolutely identical to mine I would claim in court that he produced it by duplicating mine, and not by taking a photograph. I would use the fact that it is extremely unlikely that he succeeded in taking an identical photo, since the clouds, dirt, and lighting are impossible to reproduce. I don't wish to stop someone from taking a photo; I wish to stop someone from claiming that my photo is his. > Copyright is regardless of "art" or not. My understanding is that copyright only applies to creative work, so the question of whether something is art is important: establishing that it is art makes it copyrightable without question. alex
Re: Copyright of Facts
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2.3 You suggested that the map data might be licensed under GPL. OK, so > the compilation of data is copyrighted. Isn't this first and foremost a > straightforward question under topic (1)? An obvious derivative work would > be more data compilation, wouldn't it? I think it hinges on what of the map > data is copyrighted subject matter, GPL or no. In order to remove the ambiguity, let's suppose that the data are a GPL'ed storyline about a samurai's life. Since the data are a story, it is clearly a creative work and can be copylefted. If someone builds a samurai fighting game intertwined with this story (re-used, and not re-written), do the data cause the program to need to be licensed under the GPL? Does it make a difference if any of several storylines can be plugged into the program? alex
Re: Copyright of Facts
Hi Alex, its me again :-) Please see below... Regards, Angelo Alex Nicolaou wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Here are two references that may be useful to you: > > http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html. > > This was new to me, thanks. > > > http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html. > > This I have already read, but I reread it. > > > Something I find easy to forget in these discussions is the principle that > > copyright of a work doesn't apply to the uncopyrightable material that > > occurs in that work. That is, an uncopyrightable fact can't be made > > copyrightable by virtue of being conveyed in a copyrighted work. > > The real area of confusion is whether a measured quantity should be > considered a fact. The method and (in)accuracy of the measurement > process could, potentially, be regarded a creative effort. > > If I take a photograph, I am clearly permitted to copyright it - it is > "art", and its composition reflects how I chose to record the facts (the > real objects in the photograph). It is difficult or impossible for > someone else to take the same photograph in the same conditions, so if > someone else claims to have taken an identical picture it would be easy > to win my case in court. What do you want to win in court? Your photo is yours! So every reprint or whtsoever is copyrightred by you. But HIS PHOTO IS HIS! There is no case in court! There is nothing to win!!! How would you like to prevent someone to not take a photo? Thats impossible. His photo is his work, he holds the copyright. Your photo is your work, you hold the copyright. Copyright is regardless of "art" or not. The author has the copyright - nobody else - that matters. [...] > This makes my point exactly. Errors in the map data, whether intentional > or not, allow one to distinguish between a derived work of my collection > of measurements versus a re-measuring of the data that are in my > collection. If measurements are facts, then it doesn't matter: copyright > law doesn't permit facts to be copyrighted. If I take your map and print Whooow. You bring that to a point what makes this threads so hard to follow. YES: you cant't copyright facts. What does this mean? "Ceasar died 45 A.D. at 15th of march." This is a fact. I wrote it here. I do not know who ever did write that ever before. But this eMail holds some facts: The facts: johnston wrote something, and Alex wrote something and Ceasar died. But with your stuff quoted this email is my work! I have the copyright! This is regardless of any facts here! You have no right to reproduce it without giving my name (and all others involved) on your reproduction. So if you find that thread interesting enough to write a book about it, you have to ask each contributor for alowance to "copy" his work. However in the nature of this "media" you are allowed to "copy"/quote/ reproduce-in-abstracts of this as long as the athorship of each one involved is resolveable. > a trivial transformation of it, such as a mirror image, the error would > show up and allow you to prove that it wasn't my original work. > Similarly, if I recompile the map data into a new database format, the > fact that I have reproduced all the errors of the original data suggest > that I have violated the map data copyright. All this assumes, of You have not violated the "maps data copyright" but the "maps copyright"! > course, that measurements are not facts and that they can be copyrighted > - but the correcteness of that assumption is unclear. > > > PPS: I would quibble with your example. As far as I know, under copyright > > there is no quantitative limitation on the use of facts from works of > > authorship. > > Your quibble is perfectly valid if measurements == facts. > > alex Best Regards, Angelo - Angelo Schneider OOAD/UML [EMAIL PROTECTED] Putlitzstr. 24 Patterns/FrameWorks Fon: +49 721 9812465 76137 Karlsruhe C++/JAVA Fax: +49 721 9812467
RE: Copyright of Facts
Alex, Interesting. Thanks for your response. It looks like there are two themes here. 1. The first has to do with the use of facts from a work of authorship. I take the question to be whether the measurements you make are to be construed as facts and could be used without being independently (re-)derived. I don't have anything at hand that provides guidance about that. I suspect that the measurements, if professed to be facts and taken as factual (in the empirical scientific sense), would not themselves be copyrightable subject matter, yet there might be a line that could be crossed by someone using those facts and incorporating them in another literary work. Prudence would be advised, yes? 2. The notion that data submitted to a program could cause that program to become a derivative work, whereas feeding it other data, which is also suitable for the program, wouldn't. This isn't something I intend to worry about. I can see how the output of the program might also be a violation of some IP right held by another, but it is hard to see how the program becomes a derivative work of its data as a general position. 2.1 It might be a violation of copyright, license, whatever to use the data with the program, but I don't think there is any way the data can ordinarily infect the program into being a derivative work, regardless of the logic of any argument to that effect. It seems pretty clear that the consequences of that as a doctrine are completely unacceptable to the public interest and I would be stunned if it got anywhere. Even if the data is used interpretively (i.e., it qualifies as software) as part of the program's procedure, I don't think we get very far. (E.g., is GNU running on a Sun Sparc a derivative work of the Sun Sparc processor? Does csh become a derivative work under the GPL when used to execute CVS? Is a program that makes calls to the BIOS firmware of, say, an Apple IIe a derivative work subject to Apple intellectual property rights and licensing? [As I recall, Apple once attempted to require licensing of software that used one of their BIOS interfaces but the maneuver was simply self-defeating.]) I am not considering non-copyright protections here. Just copyright. 2.2 I do work for which the LGPL is more appropriate than the GPL. It is not so much that the LGPL is needed, but that it makes clear that there is no intention to restrict certain uses of a library that *might* be construed as creation of a derivative work. For me, the LGPL is an assurance to users of my work that I will make no such claim and I give non-exclusive unrestricted license to make such works if it is ever determined at some future time that there is a derivative work involved. That's been my thinking on this. 2.3 You suggested that the map data might be licensed under GPL. OK, so the compilation of data is copyrighted. Isn't this first and foremost a straightforward question under topic (1)? An obvious derivative work would be more data compilation, wouldn't it? I think it hinges on what of the map data is copyrighted subject matter, GPL or no. Because maps, photographs, and works of that kind are subject to different rules outside the domain of literary works, I don't want to go down those roads. -- Dennis -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alex Nicolaou Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 17:41 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Alex Nicolaou; Bruce Perens; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Copyright of Facts [ ... ] The real area of confusion is whether a measured quantity should be considered a fact. The method and (in)accuracy of the measurement process could, potentially, be regarded a creative effort. [ ... ] If I take a series of measurements, I affect how accurate they are by my methodology, choice of units, etc. This is not considered to be "art", but the fact remains that few could reproduce my measurements exactly without consciously attempting to do so. Given enough measurements, the probability of reproducing my results is near zero. > For me, the question would be whether there is anything in this area of > basic copyright application that requires special attention in open-source > licensing or is this just basic stuff of copyright generally? Say more > about your concern. The question was brought to the fore by the existance of GPL'ed map data. Bruce implied that these GPL'ed data are only weakly protected by copyright law since they represent facts. If this is so, then we should not GPL databases of measurements, since the license "protects" a work that can be freely copied anyway. On another thread we are discussing what it means to "link" GPL'ed and non-GPL'ed work together; the way that thread is going could imply that since the map data are under GPL, any program which relies on this
Re: Copyright of Facts
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Here are two references that may be useful to you: > http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html. This was new to me, thanks. > http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html. This I have already read, but I reread it. > Something I find easy to forget in these discussions is the principle that > copyright of a work doesn't apply to the uncopyrightable material that > occurs in that work. That is, an uncopyrightable fact can't be made > copyrightable by virtue of being conveyed in a copyrighted work. The real area of confusion is whether a measured quantity should be considered a fact. The method and (in)accuracy of the measurement process could, potentially, be regarded a creative effort. If I take a photograph, I am clearly permitted to copyright it - it is "art", and its composition reflects how I chose to record the facts (the real objects in the photograph). It is difficult or impossible for someone else to take the same photograph in the same conditions, so if someone else claims to have taken an identical picture it would be easy to win my case in court. If I take a series of measurements, I affect how accurate they are by my methodology, choice of units, etc. This is not considered to be "art", but the fact remains that few could reproduce my measurements exactly without consciously attempting to do so. Given enough measurements, the probability of reproducing my results is near zero. > For me, the question would be whether there is anything in this area of > basic copyright application that requires special attention in open-source > licensing or is this just basic stuff of copyright generally? Say more > about your concern. The question was brought to the fore by the existance of GPL'ed map data. Bruce implied that these GPL'ed data are only weakly protected by copyright law since they represent facts. If this is so, then we should not GPL databases of measurements, since the license "protects" a work that can be freely copied anyway. On another thread we are discussing what it means to "link" GPL'ed and non-GPL'ed work together; the way that thread is going could imply that since the map data are under GPL, any program which relies on this dataset for proper operation would need to be GPL'ed ... for example a game whose world was constructed based on the map data and would not work with another dataset. > PS: I was told long ago that mapmakers once put intentional errors into > their maps specifically as a way to detect plagiarism. This makes my point exactly. Errors in the map data, whether intentional or not, allow one to distinguish between a derived work of my collection of measurements versus a re-measuring of the data that are in my collection. If measurements are facts, then it doesn't matter: copyright law doesn't permit facts to be copyrighted. If I take your map and print a trivial transformation of it, such as a mirror image, the error would show up and allow you to prove that it wasn't my original work. Similarly, if I recompile the map data into a new database format, the fact that I have reproduced all the errors of the original data suggest that I have violated the map data copyright. All this assumes, of course, that measurements are not facts and that they can be copyrighted - but the correcteness of that assumption is unclear. > PPS: I would quibble with your example. As far as I know, under copyright > there is no quantitative limitation on the use of facts from works of > authorship. Your quibble is perfectly valid if measurements == facts. alex
RE: Copyright of Facts
Alex, Here are two references that may be useful to you: Hoffman, Gary B. Who Owns Genealogy: Cousins and Copyright. published on the web at http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html. Genealogy.com (Fremont, CA: 1997) Straightforward treatment of copyright basics and an useful links to further sources. Valuable also for discussion of what is not copyrightable subject matter and considerations that apply to compilations. Templeton, Brad. A brief intro to copyright. published on the web at http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html. (www.templetons.com: undated) Another overview with a software and Internet perspective. Useful links include Templeton's own article on copyright myths. Something I find easy to forget in these discussions is the principle that copyright of a work doesn't apply to the uncopyrightable material that occurs in that work. That is, an uncopyrightable fact can't be made copyrightable by virtue of being conveyed in a copyrighted work. The compilation of the facts may be copyrightable (but the facts are still just the facts), provided that the compilation satisfies the requirements for copyrightable subject matter, but it is the compilation as a work of authorship, not the facts, that are covered. Is this an area of confusion in this discussion? There are fine points about the expression of the fact versus the fact itself, but I still think the principle is pretty clear. A complication, of course, is that there is no sure-fire, trivial mechanical test for factness versus authorship nor a hard, fixed line between creative expression of a fact and a simple utilitarian expression of a fact (which copyright is not permitted to constrain). But that area of doubt has persisted since around 1790 in the U.S. and we have managed pretty well. For me, the question would be whether there is anything in this area of basic copyright application that requires special attention in open-source licensing or is this just basic stuff of copyright generally? Say more about your concern. -- Dennis PS: I was told long ago that mapmakers once put intentional errors into their maps specifically as a way to detect plagiarism. In thinking about this, I've concluded that I want to conduct myself in a way that honors the intellectual creations of others and not worry so much about what some anonymous few might do with my work. Especially when the whole idea is to share and build on each other's work to achieve results superior to what we'd produce in isolation. --dh. PPS: I would quibble with your example. As far as I know, under copyright there is no quantitative limitation on the use of facts from works of authorship. It is only the part that constitutes authorship that matters. It isn't necessary to duplicate the measurements. There are considerations beyond copyright at play here, I think. I certainly wouldn't go reproduce someone's published trigonometry tables in a new compilation just to test this idea. --dh. -- Dennis E. Hamilton InfoNuovo mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] tel. +1-206-779-9430 (gsm) fax. +1-425-793-0283 http://www.infonuovo.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alex Nicolaou Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 02:40 To: Bruce Perens Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Can you alter the MIT license? [ ... ] Can you provide a reference that explains this? As I understand copyright law, you most certainly can copyright your particular collection of measurements that make up your map database. It certainly is true that you cannot stop me from going and making the same measurements and reporting my version. However, you could probably stand up in court and say "He must have violated my copyright because it is inconceivable that all of his measurements should be exactly the same as all of mine, since measurement is subject to error. Thus, he has copied my work in its entirety, and has violated my copyright." alex
