On 12/28/2009 1:19 PM, Bob Wyman wrote:
> When you put "license" text content, you can be as explicit as you
> want to be. However, that doesn't mean that anything you claim, write,
> etc. has any legal weight. What has weight is what the legislature
> says has weight and there is no legislature that has ever defined any
> format or protocol for specifying license rights in digital content.
> Because this is an issue of the law, not technology, no "standard"
> defined by any non-legislative body can serve to define such formats.
> Only legislatures, or other law makers (Kings, dictators, rulers,
> etc.), define the law. Standards are not laws and have no legal weight
> unless explicitly incorporated into the law.
I'm sorry - that's just a silly statement. Copyright and licenses
are two different things. If what you say were true, then no EULA or
software license (e.g. GPL) would be legal.
Those licenses define how and where and under what circumstances the
things that it covers can be used. They can require that attribution
always be maintained, and even that the license itself is always
included (GPL and most other software licenses), they can require almost
anything within reason, really.
Licenses are binding legal documents, they are not legislatively
provided copyright protections.
