On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 12:36:10PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 11:29:42AM +1000, Andrew Bennetts wrote: > > > > This isn't true -- copyright law allows for joint ownership of copyright for > > a work, i.e. both owners have full rights to copy the work under any licence > > conditions they wish, independently of each other. > > Who has standing in the event of infringement? See my other recent missive > on the topic for more details of the issues involved.
Here's another example of joint ownership -- Zope Corporation's Contributor Agreement: http://dev.zope.org/DevHome/CVS/Contributor.pdf (FAQ at http://dev.zope.org/CVS/ContributorFAQ). In particular, this text makes the answer to your question clear, I think: "You and Zope Corporation each agree that the other shall be free to exercise any and all exclusive rights in and to the Contribution, without accounting to one another ..." I think the Zope Corporation Contributor Agreement is a pretty clear demonstration of how joint ownership of copyright can work. I think the OpenOffice JCA says the same thing (albeit less clearly) when it says: "Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory rights associated with copyrights ... Contributor retains the right to use the Contribution for Contributor's own purposes." The OpenOffice JCA does seem a bit vague to my non-lawyer eyes -- I'm not sure how broad the "Contributor's own purposes" can be interpreted to be, but given that the JCA explicitly leaves the Contributor with joint ownership, presumably this extends to being able to fully exercise the rights you already had prior to making the contribution, and being able to do so independently of Sun. Personally, I'd be comfortable with signing either agreement to make contributions (and in fact I have signed the Zope Corp agreement), and I'd be comfortable with exercising my rights on any work I contributed, if I wanted to. -Andrew. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
