On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 09:00:22PM +0200, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
Are *you* an attorney specializing in
intellectual property practice,
Lars?
If not, I'd recommend you pedal it back to "I believe you're
incorrect",
instead of being attacking and insulting.
While I agree that the "clueless" comment was needlessly insulting, you
really ought to consider the possibility that, when everyone else says
you're wrong, that _might_ mean that you are, in fact, wrong.
I might, in fact, be wrong. I've tried to avoid speaking
authoritatively *about the law* as opposed to what I think is
reasonable and just.
In particular, you seem to be confused about what
[[derivative work]]
actually means. Go ahead, look it up in Wikipedia -- that page explains
it better than I could.
# A "derivative work," that is, a work that is based on (or derived
# from) one or more already existing works, is copyrightable if it
# includes what the copyright law calls an "original work of
# authorship." Derivative works, also known as "new versions," include
# such works as translations, musical arrangements, dramatizations,
# fictionalizations, art reproductions, and condensations. Any work in
# which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other
# modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship
# is a "derivative work" or "new version."
To use my example, above, my taking a photograph of an artist posing
next to his painting does *not*, to me, seem to meet the description
there, quoted from the statute, of a derivative work, as it's not
*based* on the original painting: he could have been standing next to
*anything*.
Of course, you're right about none of us being
intellectual property
lawyers, and about laymen being more often wrong than lawyers on legal
matters. However, the conclusion that you are right and all of us are
wrong would only follow from that if you were an IP lawyer yourself.
True, and my stand on that is "I'm perfectly willing to be proven
wrong; bring citations". No one is. No one is at AskMe either,
damnit. But while I'm not a lawyer of any type, I have read and paid
attention to quite a bit of work on this particular topic (for obvious
reasons), and I actually read what's put in front of me... which some
people seem not to bother to do.
*Specifically* though, what troubles me is the approach to the
characterization on Commons:Licensing. It seems to be making legal
assertions that may not actually be valid, when perhaps what it ought
to be saying is that the issue is not entirely clear, and Commons
chooses to err on the side of (over-)caution.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra(a)baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA
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