On Wed, 19 Dec 2012, Marti Maria wrote: > > Regarding the copyright, this is a good point. I put copyright Marti > blah blah to have some proof of prior art in the case of anybody > trying to patent any lcms algorithm. But many people has contributed > to the code, so I can't pretend to be the author of contributed > code. > > if you (or any other contributor) wants a specific notice of > copyright on his part, please let me know. Actually I keep a > contributors list in the authors file, but I'm not a lawyer and > probably this is not enough.
I am not a lawyer either. According to US law and Berne Convention (international agreement), copyright is automatically held by the original creator of the work. If one really cares about concrete copyright by a single entity, then it would be necessary for each contributor to sign a contract offering at least $1 of compensation (or whatever is the minimum for a binding contract) to the contributor in order for the work to be transferred. The whole work should also be registered with a goverment entity in the country of origin such as the US Copyright Office (http://www.copyright.gov/). The main reason for doing such a thing is in order to be able to defend the copyright. In the US, it is not possible to sue for monetary damages without registering the copyright. Copyright can be registered at any time but of course it takes time to do so. One open source organization which follows this process is the Free Software Foundation. Significant commercial enterprises also follow this for their software and documentation. It helps to have a legal department to handle this. :-) The biggest risk for a project like lcms is for the employer of a substantial contributor to turn up and say that the work is owned by the employer and was not granted to lcms. As for myself, consulting/employment contracts include a special exception for lcms and several other projects so the customer/employer can lay no claim on my contributions in case I happen to contribute. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d _______________________________________________ Lcms-user mailing list Lcms-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lcms-user
