Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Nothing I say can be taken as legal advice. Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> >Question, if a some random person makes a suggestion or correction to a > >document, and we use it, do we have to add them to the authors list? > > My opinion: depends on the significance of the contribution. Minor > corrections (like typos): no. *Significant* errors of fact: probably yes. Not even that, no. Copyright law does not cover ideas, it covers *work*. For example: Suppose I point out many, very significant errors. I spend a few weeks explaining the correct behaviour of the program, I show you source code, I teach you math, and spend countless hours making sure you understand the error and how to fix it. You then take that knowledge and rewrite the chapter. In this instance, I would *not* be a copyright holder. Sure, it'd be "proper and polite" to add a special thank you in the acknowledgements. But that is (1) not required by law, and (2) it has nothing to do with copyright. It would be done purely out of a human desire to say "thank you". > Major changes, additions, restructuring: depends on how much the person > personally contributes. If someone just says "you really ought to include > something about X" but doesn't contribute actual content, then I'd say no In that instance, where no actual content is contributed, the person has no copyright ownership over the work. You *own* that which you *write*. > -- though in a few cases I've had people make such significant suggestions > that I considered them to be a contributor, even if I did all the work. In > the end, I think it's up to your personal judgement. And in those cases, that "contributor" is still not a copyright holder. That contribution would be mentioned in the acknowledgements. As an aside, I'll address another aspect of the question: What if someone does contribute "content", but it's very minor. For example, if I rewrite a sentence. Does that make me copyright holder? No. Minor snipets are free to reuse under "Fair Use" provissions. How do you define "minor"? Ah, now there's a tough question. The answer is that only a judge can decide. Everything else is merely a guess as to what you think a judge would say. > I'll be interested to know others' opinions, esp. Janet's and Daniel's. On the subject of opinions: We can exercise opinions on just how much we can copy under "fair use", or how exactly a license might be interpreted (e.g. whether putting Peter's name in the acknowledgements is a violation of the CC-BY). But the copying of an *idea*, with no content contribution is clear cut, AFAIK. -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org |
