On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 05:00 -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > This paragraph reaches a level of > opacity normally requiring ten pages of licesne text.
Even looking at glass at the right angle and with the right lighting can make it look opaque. ;) > 1. What are the "rights granted by authorship"? I know of none; Specifically, I would imagine that this depends on your jurisdiction. Title 17, U.S.C. gives a list of exclusive rights. Berne specifies rights throughout; iirc, some depend on the kind of works produced. http://www.google.com/search?q=copyright+right+granted+by+authorship If there is a desire to answer the question, specifically, I think one would be willing to do the research. That first link there has a link to the exclusive rights listed in Title 17. All of this is not as far away as most seem think. Besides that, a normal person would probably ask themselves questions such as "Does an author have the right to read his/her own works?", well most certainly. Or, "Does an author have the right to modify his/her own works?", well I'd figure as much. I would imagine they could come to successful conclusions with little difficulty. > there are rights I have by virtue of being human I hear that may depend on where you live. ;) > But it'd certainly be clearer in all of them to just say what you mean. When I wish to specify that there are no limits, how can I be more specific than to say, "there are no limits"? All restrictions(that I know of) of copyrighted works are based on the exclusive rights granted to the author. By merely granting the exercise of those rights, it should be enough to take away all limitations. > Oh, and this is a big lawyer-bomb. It's fairly easy for some one (or > his heirs, etc.) to decide to un-free the work by arguing a limited > meaning of "the rights granted by authorship". For example, they > could argue the only right granted by authorship is to have the work > properly attributed, and thus that no permission to do much anything > has really been granted. I really don't think so. First, it says "rights" implying more than one. Second, and more importantly, I think Berne/title 17 well establishes what those rights are. You'd be much better off claiming your ancestor was insane for giving away his intellectual property, and could not have possibly understood what the license meant due to the fact that he spent so many hard hours creating the works, and all those hard hours, for what? For nothing! Heh. That's likely to not only get you "further", but be more interesting. That would certainly fail as well after/if it is discovered this ancestor openly allowed people to use his/her software without making explicit requests for compensation or demands to "stop taking my software from the server that is publicly accessable and has prominent links to the software that I posted on the server for public access". Heh. > 2. "that this instrument is retained". That phrase just confuses the > issue; normal people don't refer to documents as instruments. Use > "license" instead. Hrm, I was wanting to make it clear that any associated information must be included, so I may actually try to expand on this. Anyways, instrument is fine. You seem to think that people are incapable of making use of a dictionary. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=instrument I think it's obvious that number six applies to this context. > 3. Your disclaimer may not be sufficent. IANAL. However, since every > disclaimer I have seen produced by a lawyer is much more thorough, > I'd guess there is a good reason for that. Sufficient for what precisely? The only thing that I wish to make clear with that disclaimer is that there is no guarantee. I can't think of a more clear way to state it with regards to those works. Although, I may look into this more to get a clearer idea as to any technicalities involved with disclaimers. If anyone has some references or starting points, I'd be interested in having them. > Read them more closesly; they are quite "open-ended": MIT *maybe*, but I'm not at all convinced about BSD. > Permission is hereby granted ... to deal in the Software without > restriction, including without limitation the rights [list of rights], > and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, > subject to the following conditions.... (MIT License) > > Notice 'without restriction' and 'including without limitation'. The > list is there to make the license crystal clear; that is a good thing. > It in no way limits the scope of the license grant. Heh, let's treat MIT in like form. "deal in the Software"? I haven't seen that in my readings of Berne and title 17. No specific definition that I know of. So what on earth do they mean, specifically? Does that mean, I can print the material to multiple pieces of rectangular paper and play poker with my buddies without restriction? It's arguably vague. Now about the list of rights granted in MIT. Use in what way? Copy to where or to whom? Modify in what manner and with what? Merge with what? Publish to where? Distribute to whom? Sublicense with what? Sell copies of the Software for how much and to whom? Ridiculous, yes. Although, just carrying the tune that most people seem to singing; "best to be specific". All in all, thank you for your thoughts. =) -- Regards, James William Pye -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
