I agree, there is no contradiction, and I appreciate your answers. It's likely my lack of knowledge likely makes my questions hard to understand. :)
I guess my question can be rephrased as: Through what legal means is the collective copyright of Lucy (and other Apache projects) transferred to the ASF? The quote was to show that there needs to be an express transfer of rights from the authors to the ASF, and not simply the granting of a license. Alternatively phrased, how would a court know that the ASF, and not for example RightHaven, has legal standing to sue for redress of copyright violations? Generally, this is only possibly by the copyright holder, and not by a license holder. Is there some transfer of rights outside of the licenses granted by the CLA or SGA? I use RightHaven as an example, not only because they are the antithesis of the ASF, but since they recently were judged not to have standing to sue on behalf of a copyright holder[1]. Reading that decision, I'm wondering how the ASF would go about proving to a judge that they have legal standing. But this is way off-topic for Lucy, so I'll try to find another venue to ask, or will happily take answers offline. Apologies for the interruption. --nate [1] https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2011/06/14 On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 8:07 PM, Joe Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: > That section doesn't contradict what I wrote, so I don't understand the > question. The only contract you have with the ASF as a committer is the > ICLA, which is a licensing agreement not a transfer of ownership. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Dec 22, 2012, at 10:59 PM, Nathan Kurz <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Interesting, I hadn't realized that was the approach taken. I guess >> that leads to a followup question: on what basis does the ASF claim >> copyright in the collected work? >> >> 17 USC ยง 201 (c) says: >> "In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any >> rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is >> presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and >> distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective >> work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective >> work in the same series." >> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201 >> >> This transfer does not seem to occur in the CLA or SGA. Were there >> additional documents I'm not recalling that explicitly transferred >> this ownership? Are these required for each project that carries the >> ASF mandatory copywrite notice? >> >> --nate >> >> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 7:20 PM, Joe Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: >>> ASF has copyright on the collected work known as Lucy. Individual authors >>> maintain copyright over their contributions. In court it means a >>> transgressor may be sued by both parties. >>> >>> HTH >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> On Dec 22, 2012, at 7:59 PM, Nathan Kurz <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I have a simple non-urgent for-intellectual-curiosity-only copyright >>>> question regarding Lucy: who is the copyright holder for Lucy? >>>> >>>> In our NOTICE file, it says "Copyright 2010-2012 The Apache Software >>>> Foundation", as required by the ASF guidelines: >>>> http://apache.org/legal/src-headers.html#notice >>>> >>>> But in the Contributor License Agreement and Software Grant Agreement, >>>> there appear to be only a grants of license rather than assignments of >>>> copyright. >>>> >>>> http://apache.org/licenses/icla.txt >>>> http://apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt >>>> >>>> The CLA defines "Contribution" as "any original work of authorship ... >>>> that is intentionally submitted by You to the Foundation", and the >>>> SGA requires that the "Licensor owns or has sufficient rights to >>>> contribute the software source code and other related intellectual >>>> property", but as I read them, the legally binding clauses only refer >>>> to granting of non-exclusive licenses. No mention that I can see is >>>> made of assigning copyright to the ASF. >>>> >>>> http://apache.org/licenses/icla.txt >>>> http://apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt >>>> >>>> So: is the ASF the copyright owner or a licensee? That is, do they >>>> have legal standing to seek remedy for license violations? >>>> >>>> I have no dog in this fight, but was confused by some comments on a >>>> recent article describing the FSF copyright assignment requirements >>>> where it was asserted that the ASF does have this requirement: >>>> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4956998 >>>> >>>> --nate
