On 06/02/14 01:36, Matthew Kloth wrote:
> For example: I make an image and put it under my "superviral" license.
> Somebody else creates a derivative and posts it to deviantart or flickr
> or some such place. Their derivative work is automatically under the
> superviral license simply because they created and distributed a
> derivative. Even if they don't put a superviral license notice, it
> would still be under that license whether or not they wanted it to be.
As far as I'm aware, the GPL gets as close to this as is legally
possible. GPL3 §9:
"""
You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a
copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring
solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a
copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than
this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered
work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this
License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you
indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.
"""
(GPL2 §5 is similar.)
If the author of a derivative work[1] asserts that they have not agreed
to the license, then they're illegally infringing your copyright
instead, and what happens is between you, them and the legal system. If
threatened with legal action, I would hope that the rational response
would be to apologise and release their derivative under an appropriate
license; but you never know.
If the derivative work is derived from more than one source then it
certainly isn't safe to say "this is GPL'd, because the GPL says so",
because its publisher might not have the authority to release it under
GPL at all. A concrete example to make this less vague:
* Alice publishes a work "A" under CC-BY-NC
* Bob publishes a work "B" under the GPL
* Chris publishes a work "C" derived from both A and B
Chris does not have the authority to release C under the GPL (because
the GPL allows commercial use and CC-BY-NC does not), CC-BY-NC (because
the GPL does not allow that additional restriction), or any other
license (because they can't satisfy both conditions simultaneously), so
depending on the license they chose for C, they are infringing Alice's
copyright, Bob's copyright, or both.
S
[1] assuming that what they're doing with their derivative is something
that is forbidden by copyright law in the relevant jurisdiction (which
it might not be, for instance if their work is a parody of yours)
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