On Tue Jun 08, 2004 at 13:58:00 +0930, Glen Turner wrote: >On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 10:47, Benno wrote: > >> >More common with computer programs is the "rights assignment". You sti= >ll >> >own the copyright, but you non-exclusively assign all rights to anothe= >r >> >party. The FSF rights assignment is a good example. >>=20 >> I was under the impression that rights assignment, especially the >> FSF one is a transfer of copyright. I.e: FSF now owns copyright, and yo= >u >> no longer own copyright. > >I checked and you're right. The greedy pigs :-) They do have a >disclaimer process (you move it to public domain and FSF pick it up from >there) but that assumes a formal "public domain" to start with >(something lacking in AU). > >> And a child is a full legal entity, at least in terms of being able to >> legally own goods. > >Let's not got there, the powers of guardians and children concerning >property are necessarily complex. I was making the point that the >entities recognised by the Copyright Act are wider than the entities >recognised by the corporations law; in particular, the unincorporated >joint venture gives validity to notices such as > > Copyright =C2=A9 Samba Core Team, 2004. > >This is convenient as the UJV is a useful entity for free software >projects (as it makes various liabilities fall out well).
Reading http://www.copyright.org.au/PDF/InfoSheets/G010.pdf implies to me at least that only legal entities can own copyright, and implied that ownership of copyright worked in the same way ownership of other goods. From the factsheet: """ However, if someone trades under a business name, the correct name to put in the copyright notice is not the business name but the names of the relevant individual or individuals. The reason for this is that a business name is not a legal entity, and does not own property; only individuals and incorporated bodies such as companies can own property (including copyright).""" To me this implies: 1/ copyright *is* property 2/ only individuals and incorporated bodies can own property. Of course this might be fully in line with what you are saying ;), I'm not sure what you mean as "recognised by the corporations law". Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
