[GRASS5] Re: [Fwd: whinging about GRASS again]

[Mark P. Line]

Jack Varga said:
> Mark P. Line wrote:
>
>> Open source software is by definition *NOT* in the public domain if it
>> is
>> constrained by copyright or by a license agreement.
>
> Copyleft uses (US) copyright law to REMOVE the CONSTRAINT you speak of.
>   You can sell, give away copyleft software, etc.  The only thing you
> are CONSTRAINED do to is CONSTRAIN it.  Recursive logic that is
> brilliant IMO.

[IANAL. TINLA]

Copyleft is just one more way to issue a license for (grant rights to)
something that is copyrighted.

http://www.linuxbusinessweek.com/story/43618.htm


> While not an attorney, one thing is for certain, US intellectual
> property laws are dynamic, constantly being modified.  They are not
> universally adopted across the world, and since when do legislatures
> define the meaning of words?  That's Webster's domain.

It's in the legal domain, not just the lexicographical domain, because if
you call something "public domain" that is not legally in the public
domain, you may be exposing yourself to litigation if somebody relies on
your incorrect representation.

The legal system defines the meanings of words all the time, to the extent
that the words are being used in the legal system.

What would happen if I started burning DVD's of open source software and
sold them under my own label and gave no hint that the source was open and
available, much less where to obtain it? Would the copyright owners merely
slap my wrist and tell my what a naughty boy I was?

Maybe. They might also sue for an injunction to make me distribute the
source in compliance with the licenses that were in effect.

And they would win.

That's why the legal definitions are the ones that are applicable.
Everything else is somebody's wishful thinking.

The Germans have a saying, "die Rechnung ohne den Wirt machen", i.e. to
make up your own check when you're ready to leave the restaurant. That's
what you'd be doing if you issued a license for software without
understanding that the license is an instrument of intellectual property
law.

Not everybody can be an intellectual property lawyer, but it makes no
sense to pretend that our actions are subject only to definitions as found
in Webster's Dictionary. No matter how much of an anarchist I might be, I
can't pretend that the legal system doesn't exist and operate everywhere.


> FWIW, by your definition,

It's not *my* definition.

I do work for attorneys and sometimes tell them what to say, but I don't
make up the definitions that are going to work for them in court. :)


> that which is deemed "public domain" is more
> constrained by copyright than "copyleft," because derivative work of
> something public domain can fall out of the public domain.

Nothing can fall out of the public domain once it's there.

Work that is derivative of something that is in the public domain will
generally constitute a new work with its own copyright.

If I translate _Beowulf_ into Swahili, I will own the copyright to my
translation and have the same rights to it that I would have to anything I
wrote de novo.

[IANAL. TINLA.]


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX