On Mon, 26 Aug 2002, Doug Meerschaert wrote: > I'm not aware of any great differenes between "sticky copyleft" > licenses--that is, licenses where you get the right to IP in exchange > for using the same terms as the IP you're using, such as the GPL or the OGL.
In philosophical terms, no there aren't great differences between the various 'copyleft' licenses out there. However in actual contract terms (i.e. if you were to read each license) you would see significant differences in language, organization, requirements & prohibitions. What result this would have in court cases I would not want to speculate on, but clearly it could have substantial differences in how courts apply various contracts and that would then feed back into the development of the concept of 'copyleft'. > (Not that it's likely to matter to a judge, but wouldn't different > interpretations of what is and is not "derivitive" be a bigger legal > hurdle for the OGL than what is and is not "Clear Identification?") Perhaps, but that's not an issue created by the OGL - that's a well recognized area of copyright law. As I've said repeatedly, the OGL does nothing to change copyright law. So any such issues that arise are not a result of or a problem with the OGL - they are copyright issues and there's really little to nothing the OGL can do about them. Of course anyone using a copyleft contract such as the OGL, is essentially implying their willingness to both accept another's opinion on what can be copyrighted and work within those borders. If you aren't willing to do so, why bother with the OGL since you don't believe the material can be copyright protected anyway? [Yes, there are practical reasons, but that doesn't really change the impact of voluntarily publishing under the OGL.] > What about Section 14? If a court nullifies the "copyleft derivitive" > part of the contract, wouldn't the other elements of consideration > (don't use trademarks, clearly identify existing and new OGC, don't use > PI) remain valid and leave the license as a whole valid? (I'd think > this would be a reason for the licensors of copyleft to not want to go > to court--because their license might be found to be not nearly as > sticky as they thought it is.) > > For reference: OGL Section 14 : "Reformation: If any provision of this > License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed > only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable." This is standard for most contracts (and in the U.S. at least for most statutory law as well) - if some element of a contract (or law) isn't permitted you don't throw the whole thing out, just that part that doesn't work. Since the term 'copyleft derivitive' has no meaning to me, I'm going to have to venture a guess on what you are saying is the problem. The OGL creates no new concept of copyright derivation - it exists on top of legal system's general understanding of how copyright applies to derivative material. If the understanding of derivative material changes, the OGL still just sits atop the new understanding. If you mean something different please explain. alec _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
