Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?
Russ Nelson asked: Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? Not that I can recall. :-) Out of fear of that very result, though, I support increased infrastructure spending by our government. But I don't stress out every time I drive over a bridge or when I use open source software that is owned by an individual who wants to reserve her moral rights. Indeed, I respect moral rights in the ways that I license and use open source software and I advise respectful attribution whenever appropriate. Does the protection of moral rights require anything onerous of you? Best, /Larry -Original Message- From: Russ Nelson [mailto:nel...@crynwr.com] Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 10:43 PM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain? Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? -russ Lawrence Rosen writes: Russ, have you ever experienced that inferiority in actual open source software? /Larry (from my tablet and brief) Russ Nelson nel...@crynwr.com wrote: Oleksandr Gavenko writes: Moral Rights: Only some countries claim Moral Rights. And as you point out, this is very problemmatic for Open Source Software. We have traditionally held that a license is a license is a license, but it's clear that OSI Approved Open Source contributions from people who live in countries that claim Moral Rights is inferior to people who live in countries which don't. -- --my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com Crynwr supports open source software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Russ Nelson asked: Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? Not that I can recall. :-) Out of fear of that very result, though, I support increased infrastructure spending by our government. But I don't stress out every time I drive over a bridge or when I use open source software that is owned by an individual who wants to reserve her moral rights. Indeed, I respect moral rights in the ways that I license and use open source software and I advise respectful attribution whenever appropriate. Does the protection of moral rights require anything onerous of you? Let's see. Linus Torvalds is Finnish and began Linux in Finland. As Henrik pointed out, Finnish law has the concept of moral rights, and one of those rights is the right of integrity, which can allow the copyright holder to restrict the use of his copyrighted material in ways that infringe on his honor. In particular you can say that you can't use that work for pornography. Oleksandr pointed us to http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726 which says that this moral right can be enforced even in countries which do not have moral rights in their copyright law. I am not a lawyer. I know even less about international law. My knowledge of this topic is, in fact, pretty much half an hour with Google following up references in this discussion. But it looks to me like Linus might have the ability to sue a US pornography company that is using Linux to stream their porn based on his moral right rising from Finnish copyright law. If so, then that would run directly counter to OSD #6. I trust that Linus never would do so. But if he and many other European contributers to open source projects actually *could* do that, that's not exactly a small detail. (Particularly if you were loving using open source to distribute your loving.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?
[This email best viewed in HTML format] Hi Ben, It would be difficult for Linus Torvalds to complain about porn when he intentionally released an operating system that is so ideally suited for the delivery of porn. It would be like Michelangelo complaining because derivatives of his statue of David revealed some private parts. /Larry Description: http://www.richardclover.co.uk/images/MichelangeloDavid2.jpg Source: http://www.richardclover.co.uk/node/39 -Original Message- From: Ben Tilly [mailto:bti...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 9:45 AM To: lro...@rosenlaw.com; license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain? On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Lawrence Rosen mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Russ Nelson asked: Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? Not that I can recall. :-) Out of fear of that very result, though, I support increased infrastructure spending by our government. But I don't stress out every time I drive over a bridge or when I use open source software that is owned by an individual who wants to reserve her moral rights. Indeed, I respect moral rights in the ways that I license and use open source software and I advise respectful attribution whenever appropriate. Does the protection of moral rights require anything onerous of you? Let's see. Linus Torvalds is Finnish and began Linux in Finland. As Henrik pointed out, Finnish law has the concept of moral rights, and one of those rights is the right of integrity, which can allow the copyright holder to restrict the use of his copyrighted material in ways that infringe on his honor. In particular you can say that you can't use that work for pornography. Oleksandr pointed us to http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726 http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726 which says that this moral right can be enforced even in countries which do not have moral rights in their copyright law. I am not a lawyer. I know even less about international law. My knowledge of this topic is, in fact, pretty much half an hour with Google following up references in this discussion. But it looks to me like Linus might have the ability to sue a US pornography company that is using Linux to stream their porn based on his moral right rising from Finnish copyright law. If so, then that would run directly counter to OSD #6. I trust that Linus never would do so. But if he and many other European contributers to open source projects actually *could* do that, that's not exactly a small detail. (Particularly if you were loving using open source to distribute your loving.) image001.jpg___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?
And yet we know that bridges collapse. Is it reasonable to take steps against bridges collapsing? We (mostly) don't build bridges out of wood (software from moral rights countries), but instead out of steel and concrete (countries where people cannot retroactively change the license on open source software). Lawrence Rosen writes: Russ Nelson asked: Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? Not that I can recall. :-) Out of fear of that very result, though, I support increased infrastructure spending by our government. But I don't stress out every time I drive over a bridge or when I use open source software that is owned by an individual who wants to reserve her moral rights. Indeed, I respect moral rights in the ways that I license and use open source software and I advise respectful attribution whenever appropriate. Does the protection of moral rights require anything onerous of you? Best, /Larry -Original Message- From: Russ Nelson [mailto:nel...@crynwr.com] Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 10:43 PM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain? Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed? -russ Lawrence Rosen writes: Russ, have you ever experienced that inferiority in actual open source software? /Larry (from my tablet and brief) Russ Nelson nel...@crynwr.com wrote: Oleksandr Gavenko writes: Moral Rights: Only some countries claim Moral Rights. And as you point out, this is very problemmatic for Open Source Software. We have traditionally held that a license is a license is a license, but it's clear that OSI Approved Open Source contributions from people who live in countries that claim Moral Rights is inferior to people who live in countries which don't. -- --my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com Crynwr supports open source software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 10:06 PM, Russ Nelson nel...@crynwr.com wrote: And yet we know that bridges collapse. Is it reasonable to take steps against bridges collapsing? We (mostly) don't build bridges out of wood (software from moral rights countries), but instead out of steel and concrete (countries where people cannot retroactively change the license on open source software). Can you provide a list of software for which the license has been invalidated or retroactively changed due to moral rights in any country? Please compare the list you come up with this for quantity of instances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures Feel free to adjust the time frame on that list to those within the time frame that software has existed. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
