Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Under my analysis, it doesn't matter, because you can't copyright that > which is not copyrightable.
Wether you call it copyright or not it doesn't change the fact that wordlists might fall under the IP-protection described by the European Union's Database Directive. So to distribute wordlists in the EU we have to be allowed to do so from the holder of the IP-rights (whatever you would call this specifc rights). No license - No distribution! One more time I would like to refere you to the debian-legal august thread about licensing of aspell-nl: <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200208/msg00268.html> Or directly to the text J.H.M Dassen refered to in the August thread: <http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html#directive> The second right, however, provides for a sui generis right that prohibits the extraction or reutilization of any database in which there has been a substantial investment in either obtaining, verification, or presentation of the data contents. Under this second right, there is no requirement for creativity or originality. In effect, this right gives databases in Europe the type of "sweat of the brow" protection that was explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in Feist. The sui generis right lasts for fifteen years from the date of the database's creation. The making of usable wordlists is a substantial investment in verification. The work on the danish dictionary is one of the most boring tasks I've ever been involved with in relation to open source. I don't want to know how many man month we have spend and how many we have to spend before we're comparable to the commercial dictionaries. -- Peter Makholm | Yes, you can fight it, but in the end the ultimate [EMAIL PROTECTED] | goal of life is to have fun http://hacking.dk | -- Linus Torvalds _______________________________________________ Aspell-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/aspell-devel
