Anthony wrote: I don't doubt that this is a part of US law. The point really is does the Code have the same definition of "publish" (and its related words) in the context of copyright law as it does in the context of defamation law, or any other branch of law where the definition may be an issue? Ec

On 7/14/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey(a)wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote: Ownership of what? The ownership of copyright doesn't get transferred. Copies of the work don't get transferred. What gets transferred? Bits? Anthony

Ray Saintonge wrote: It transfers rights tantamount to ownership (all of this GNU crap does). And may qualify as a transfer of copyight since it conveys "RIGHT TO COPY" == COPYRIGHT. People just for some reason are not able to get this. Go read the licence. If you grant someone unlimited RIGHT TO COPY under the Doctrine of Esstoppel, after they do it for some period of time, it may qualify as a transfer of copyright. There is case law that backs up this view -- Copyrights can be transferred on the back of a bubble gum wrapper according to one ruling by the Circuit courts when you give someone UNLIMITED RIGHT TO COPY something. Jeff

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote: It's more subtle than that. It's free distribution not free contents. Free is an adjective, and as such does not stand in isolation. If someone gives you a new hat with a logo on it the right to reproduce the logo does not come with ownership of the hat. Intangible properties such as rights are not treated the same way as tangible properties such as hats. GFDL allows for downstream reuses by all persons, not just for educational purposes. It is also not an unconditional granting of rights. It requires users to pass those same conditions on to subsequent users, and provides that derivative works also be licensed in the same way. In simple terms a user who does not do this is in breach of license. Ec

James Hare wrote: I agree with all of this. "Free" is fine with me and I agree I don't think anyone cares about copyright issues on GFDL text. Jeff

James Hare wrote: Well, I am distributing it, and making lots of money off of it promoting it, and I am keeping it free (the knowledge and software part, anyway -- hardware always costs money). :-) Jeff

James Hare wrote: I don't find it boring. Bringing all the bio stuff up says more about you than about him. That's very pious of you. We still need to Free the Law. Ec

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote: A few points to note here.... The biggest known "abuser" of GPL'd software is Tivo (the set-top real-time video recorder). The company openly admits to be using Linux as the OS for their products but doesn't give copies of "modified" software they have been using within the devices that they sell. The problem here is, are they selling devices that happen to have GPL'd software "embedded" in the device, not re-selling software. The GPL is ambiguous if this is even a violation, and other companies that you are talking about also view pinching GPL'd code under the same light. I guess this is one of the "classes" of violators you are talking about. Some of this is also a mistaken belief that the GPL requires "giving back to the community" any changes to software that you make. It does not, and Tivo has decided to keep their changes as trade secrets. The other known major abuser of copyleft software was none other than Microsoft itself, who copied the TCP/IP software from BSD Unix for the Windows NT operating system network routines. The problem here is that it was not the GPL, but rather the BSD license that this software was released under, and the FSF has no copyright claim on any of these routines either. BTW, the exact opposite view is sometimes applied, where you will not be hired by some software development groups if you have ever been exposed to GPL'd software source code. The reason is that they don't want to have their software "contaminated" by GPL'd software specifically because they don't want to deal with the viral nature of the GPL and being forced to release all of their software under the GPL. Of course the most famous court case for testing the GPL is SCO vs. IBM, where it was originally seen as a major test of the GPL (with IBM backing of the GPL in a weird twist of events). Instead it looks as if the case is going to spin into a stock fraud case and turn from civil litigation into a criminal matter. Where the SEC will take this, I'm not sure, but I'm certain that the GPL will be the least of the problems for the CEO of SCO. This case did air out some of the legal issues regarding the GPL in court and did deal with many copyleft issues in general, but it doesn't look like the GPL will be significant for any precedence to use this case in future GPL-related litigation. I'm curious what other major copyright violators of the GPL that you are talking about that the FSF didn't litigate against? The real issue that the FSF has been facing is that major violators of the GPL havn't necessarily been violating the use of GNU/Hurd software or anything else with a copyright claim by the FSF. I guess this is another "class" of GPL violations, but if they don't have a copyright claim, the FSF can't really file as a plaintiff and enforce the copyright. There is also the issue of statutory vs. actual damage claims that I raised earlier that also apply to software under the GPL, making even a positive judgement (for the GPL) something that is essentially a moot point and effectively unenforcable. -- Robert Scott Horning

Robert Scott Horning wrote: I'm sure that there's a strong element of truth to this. In the long run tactics analogous to guerilla warfare tend to be more effective against massive power. Sigh! Stock fraud, the refuge of high quality scoundrels. I agree, and GFDL hasn't been touched at all. For the most part I think that the strategic thinking necessary for dealing with these complex issues is missing from WMF. This is unfortunate because vested interests are going to fight like hell to maintain their advantages, even as the underlying social fabric of copyright is changing. In the nearly three centuries since Queen Anne's Law the ones who have had the ears of the politicians have been the ones who stood to do well with improved protections. For most of that time those who would benefit from any different were mostly scattered, and never in any position to mount an effective lobby. Perhaps WMF's greatest disadvantage is that it has become so big. Being big can mean having more to lose in a knock down legal street scrap. Ec