My book got translated into Swedish by Lennart Nilsson. We only have a very loose "gentleman's agreement", but basically my understanding is that I have granted him a license to do the translation and sell the resulting work, in exchange for a royalty, but that he actually owns the copyright on the Swedish translation.
So Nick, could you, in principle, prevent the release of your French version under a Creative Commons License? Could you actually demand that it take place? That would be good test of whether you own the copyright. Cheers On Sat, Oct 03, 2009 at 09:58:28PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > One of my books was translated into french; I got royalties, and I think I > own the copyright! > > n > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Russ Abbott > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Sent: 10/3/2009 9:37:28 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Publishing Agreements (was "More mumbo-jumbo") > > > Why is it--if it is--that if I write rules and you translate them into > software you own the software and are not violating my copyright ownership of > the (expression of the) rules, whereas if you translate them into French you > don't own the rights to the French version? > > -- Russ Abbott > _____________________________________________ > Professor, Computer Science > California State University, Los Angeles > Cell phone: 310-621-3805 > o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > > > > > On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Patrick Reilly <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I will add that a Creative Commons license approach might be of interest to > this community. > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Oct 3, 2009, at 20:23, Gary Schiltz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Of course, all these arguments are moot with open source licenses. But then, > I wonder how many people actually make money with open source. I'm on the > fence with regards to the whole open source movement. Opinions? > > ;; Gary > > > On Oct 3, 2009, at 10:24 PM, russell standish wrote: > > > On Sat, Oct 03, 2009 at 07:07:00PM -0700, Miles Parker wrote: > > > IANAL of course, but in general this situation is no different form one > where ay someone has an idea, tells it to someone else, and that someone > else writes a book about it. Ideas can't be copyrighted but software can; > and implementations of ideas can be patented. (Yuck, though..) Am I right > > > No - only the ideas can be patented. The whole software patent brouha > revolves around people patenting fairly obvious software algorithms > for marginally novel uses. But it is not the software itself that is > patented - if I write a piece of software that implements someone > patented algorithm, then I am potentially infringing that patent, > regardless of whether I even know the patent existed. > > > folks? By default the copyright is with the actual author, i.e. in this > case the programer, unless there is some specific agreement otherwise. But > that's just the default situation; if that's not what you want then you > guys need to come up with an agreement that specifies that you share > copyright and then make sure that the code has the appropriate notices. > That should be really straightforward. > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
