From: Alessandro Rubini rubini@gnu.org
On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 11:24:28AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
I'm unsure how to respond to the rest of your points as the differences between copyright and IP law aren't clear to me today. Maybe someone else will do better.
Alex:
IP is the wider law, governing copyrights, trademarks, etc. Copyright is merely asserting authorship. intellectual-property.gov.uk is pretty good.
Actually, "intellectual property" is a buzzword. There is no "IP law" to my knowledge, but there are laws about copyright, patents, trademarks.
"intellectual property" is the term information owners use to spread the idea that owning information is a natural thing just like private property (yes, some of you may disagree, but you get my point anyways).
Don't mix the "European Copyright" (at least to my understaning) with the bad english word "Copyright".
Don't mix the "European Copyright" (at least to my understaning) with the bad english word "Copyright".
Yes, you are right they are different.
From what I know, European Copyright is very similar to the German Copyright which rather should be called "Authorship right" because the German name is: "Urheberrecht". It is forbidden by law to give away this property.
Same here: "diritto d'autore". But calling it "property" is not correct.
What you may give away is the Copy-right in the real meaning of the words. This is completely different from the US laws on Copyright.
I don't see them as "completely" different, although there are differences.
For the same reason it is no possible to have public domain software in Europe....
That's interesting. Could you please expand on this?
To my knoledge, a work is told to be in the public domain when the exclusive rights of the author (copy rights) have expired. What you can't give up is the "moral" right of being the author, but that has little practical meaning, as far as I can tell.
/alessandro
On Wed, 8 Aug 2001 09:39:03 +0200, Alessandro Rubini said:
To my knoledge, a work is told to be in the public domain when the exclusive rights of the author (copy rights) have expired. What you
True, 70 years after the death of the author it is a public good but for practial usage you have to find a copy which has been published
70 years ago.
can't give up is the "moral" right of being the author, but that has little practical meaning, as far as I can tell.
The only problem is that some U.S. authors say: "I put this into the public domain" - this is not sufficient because this term is only useful under U.S. copyright law and afaik not part of the Bern Convention.
Instead of putting something into the "public domain" an author should give explicit permission like:
# Copyright (C) 2001 Joe Random Hacker # # This file is free software; as a special exception the author gives # unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it, with or without # modifications, as long as this notice is preserved. # # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but # WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law; without even the # implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
so that it can be used outside the U.S. without problems. The drawback is that the copyright notice has to be put into all derived works - but that is something a responsible hacker always does - it is needed to keep track of the changes and the legal status of a work.
Ciao,
Werner
#include <ianal.h>
Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org schrieb/wrote:
True, 70 years after the death of the author it is a public good but for practial usage you have to find a copy which has been published
70 years ago.
Not necessarily. A copy which has no modifications (or no modifications that would be protected by copyright[1]) over the old version is sufficient.
Claus
[1] Such as adapting the work to a new spelling.
On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 09:39:03AM +0200, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
Don't mix the "European Copyright" (at least to my understaning) with the bad english word "Copyright".
Yes, you are right they are different.
I'm not sure you can have a go at the word "copyright" itself! Certainly, though, you are right about the strict UK legal definition of "copyright" - Uk copyright is property, you can buy and sell it, as well as license the rights to use it.
For the same reason it is no possible to have public domain software in Europe....
That's interesting. Could you please expand on this?
I don't think this is the case in the UK. The term 'public domain' has a meaning, although (IIRC) no legal connotation. Public domain works are those on which the copyright has passed, for example, but I believe it is also possible to place works into the public domain. It simply means you rescind your copyright on it, I think, thus making it fair game for anyone.
Cheers,
Alex.
--
On 07 Aug 2001 23:29:26 +0200, schilling@fokus.gmd.de wrote:
Don't mix the "European Copyright" (at least to my understaning) with the bad english word "Copyright".
From what I know, European Copyright is very similar to the German Copyright which rather should be called "Authorship right" because the German name is: "Urheberrecht". It is forbidden by law to give away this property.
What you may give away is the Copy-right in the real meaning of the words.
This is completely different from the US laws on Copyright. For the same reason it is no possible to have public domain software in Europe....
This is not correct. At least in Portugal the concept of copyright (direitos de autor) includes the concepts of transfer and public domain. AFAIK there's no such concept of non-tranferable authorship here.