On Sun, Jun 06, 2004, David Guest wrote: > Alternatively are their commercial contracts for assigning copyright > under dual licensing? (e.g. I get one dollar for every seat where this > application is used under a commercial license.) Or is this too messy > to handle in practice?
I don't think it makes sense to "assign ... copyright under dual licensing." Assigning copyright to me gives me the right to control copying of the work (ie to licence it however I like). On the other hand, licencing it to me authorises me to use it (and perhaps copy it) in particular ways. Either can be handed over as part of contractual agreements so you may get an agreed return for either. In fact, in the academic world it is common practice when you publish a paper to give the publisher copyright in return for a licence for noncommercial distribution of your paper[1]. But you don't assign copyright under particular licences. Either you give them copyright, assigning them complete control over the right to copy your work, or you give them a licence, assigning them a specified, limited amount of control over the right to copy your work. So, assuming you're talking about dual licencing, not copyright assignment, wouldn't this be pretty much the same as the distribution model the game industry uses: here have a licence to distribute my game, give me $X for every sale? In this case there would be two licences specified in the contract. But I don't know of any commerical FOSS projects that have this kind of deal with outside contributors. -Mary [1] Not all academic presses are this nice, some will require copyright assignment and will not licence your work back to you at all. You can buy a copy like everyone else. Why do people agree to such terms? Because the publication process is a professional reputation game, and if you don't publish enough, you may not keep your job. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
