On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 12:54:10AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Bart Martens <[email protected]> writes: > > > That "authors" are not the same as "copyright holders" is simply a fact > > regardless of what debian-policy states. For example, the programmer > > who wrote some software can be the "author" and the company the > > programmer was working for can be the "copyright holder". > > This is the part I don't find this at all obvious. To me, it's the > difference between referring to the collective entity or disassembling it > into its constituent parts. Either are usually considered correct; one > could say that the Free Software Foundation is the author of GNU time, or > that several specific volunteers for the Free Software Foundation are the > authors of GNU time, and be correct either way.
I don't see this as "the collective entity" and "constituent parts". Being an author doesn't make one a copyright holder. And being a copyright holder doesn't make one an author. The terms "author" and "copyright holder" are different terms with different meanings. Of course, some/many/most authors are also copyright holders of their works, but not always. Authors and copyright holders of the same works can be different parties with different interests. > > It sounds like to you the word "author" implies an individual human being > always, and isn't correct to use about a collective entity like a > volunteer project, non-profit umbrella, or company. Whether an "author" is always an "individual human being" is, in my opinion, not relevant in this context. Other example : books. It is very common with books that the author and the copyright holder are not the same person/organization. Regards, Bart Martens -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
