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