More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Robert Dewar]

Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:<3CD0043A.AB588053@despammed.com>...
> TO EVERYONE WHO SAW THE OTHER MESSAGE:
> 
> I hereby explicitly claim copyright on all differences
> between that message and the original submission
> to SIMTEL-20.  I hereby withdraw ANY rights
> I've assigned to the FSF for ANY copies made
> anywhere, any time.  I hereby give permission
> to anybody, anywhere & anytime to make the same
> changes.

But you can't claim copyright here. You have created a
deriviative work without the original authors permission.
That is in itself a copyright violation. You can only
create a deriviative work if you have an agreement with
the original author to do so. Whether that agreement
leaves you with any copyright interest is a matter
to be decided by the copyright agreement.

You are not in a position to give permission to others
to repeat the same violation of copyright.

Yes, of course in this case it is *probably* OK, and
yes, when individuals do this sort of thing, they are
*probably* OK, since it is not worth suing individuals.
On the other hand, when that individual widely publishes
the work, that's upping the risk a LOT over just doing
it yourself for yourself (which after all may well be fair
use -- up to a court to say -- and if you ask for RD's
non-binding opinion on what ought to be, this *should*
be fair use).

The reason I am making these points here is not because
I suspect a real problem in this particular case (it is
a reasonable guess that the original author, undoubtedly
not himself being an expert in such matters, just assumed
that by putting the material out without any kind of
notice he was establishing an implicit permission. That's
wrong, there is no such procedure, but probably Wes was
right in guessing the intention).

My point was that these days, with so much stuff floating
around the net, you have to be very careful that you *know*
what you are picking up. Once again, for personal use, in
practice (and maybe in law, depending on how fair use is
interpreted), there is nothing to worry about, but when
you start publishing stuff to others, or using the material
in any kind of commercial endeavor, then you can be in
deep water very fast.

Consider the following. Suppose you reverse engineer
Microsoft Power Point and fix a bug. If you
use that just for yourself, then

a) Microsoft won't know about it and won't bother you

b) It may well be that there is no copyright violation
here and that a jury would decide this is fair use,
whatever the microsoft license says (I would not imagine
a jury being sympathetic to Microsoft claiming that you
were not allowed to fix such an error for your own use).

But if you publish this modified/fixed version, MS may
definitely come after you. Whether they will sue rather
than just pressure you to cease and desist is a matter
of circumstances and how deep your pockets are. For
example, if you are a competitor and make a rival package
and on your web site it says

"For those whose bosses insist on using powerpoint, and
who can't stand dealing with xyz error, we have posted
a fixed version of powerpoint. We sympathize with you
having to use this inferior software, but at least this
fixed version will make one serious headache go away,
sorry we can't do anything about the rest [except
persuade you to abandon the dark side and use our
product :-)]"

Then I would bet that Microsoft would sue :-) :-)

The other point is that copyright assignment is not something
you can just do out of the blue. It must be done by formal
agreement. In fact the FSF will only accept copyright 
assignments under very stringent conditions (including
a willingness to provide certain forms of indemnification,
and also the FSF has to be convinced that it wants the
copyrights).

For example, in the case of GNAT, the original version done
at NYU was assigned to the FSF through a formal agreement
between the FSF and NYU (this assignment was required by the
government contract -- an unusual requirement for such a
contract). THe ongoing assignment of parts of the GNAT
technology by ACT to the FSF comes from a separate
agreement.

Of course you can always choose any license to use for your
own stuff, and you can use the GPL or GMGPL freely, without
assigning your copyright.

It really is important for people to be careful here. I have
come across all sorts of unfortunate cases. In one big project
they were using a version of CYGWIN that GPL'ed but not
LGPL'ed (or using any other similar license). They were clearly
in a situation of having violated Cygnus/Redhat copyrights. I
told them they had better contact Redhat and get a commercial
license, whether they did I do not know!

Robert Dewar

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Wes Groleau]

> > I hereby explicitly claim copyright on all differences
> > between that message and the original submission
> 
> But you can't claim copyright here. You have created a
> deriviative work without the original authors permission.
> That is in itself a copyright violation. You can only

I hereby withdraw (without concession either way) from
any arguments about whether I violated copyright.  I will
re-enter that fight if and when someone convinces a court
to hear the case.

But I _can_ claim copyright on the parts that I did.

And I hereby withdraw from any argument on that point.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Robert Dewar]

Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:<3CD92EA5.2EF45E7D@despammed.com>...
 
> But I _can_ claim copyright on the parts that I did.

Not really! You can't just go around creating deriviative
works without the original author's permission, since this
is in itself a clear copyright violation. At the very least
this would cancel out any claim of ownership to the derived
product that you might think you have.

Example: if you create a version of Lion King with 
overspoken comments on this Disney film,
you are definitely violating Disney's copyright and
they will come after you. The question of your own
copyright interests in the joint work will hardly
arise in this situation. It will be a moot point in
the true sense of the word, the court will not need
to decide this issue (leaving it moot = arguable, and
undecided) because the issue of you violating the
copyright will be what comes to the court's attention!

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Hyman Rosen]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:<3CD92EA5.2EF45E7D@despammed.com>...
>>But I _can_ claim copyright on the parts that I did.
> 
> Not really! You can't just go around creating deriviative
> works without the original author's permission, since this
> is in itself a clear copyright violation.

For USians, look at <http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html>.
 From there,
	Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare,
	or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.

That's why the GPL is such a strong and unbeatable license.

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Alexandre E. Kopilovitch]

dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>Example: if you create a version of Lion King with 
>overspoken comments on this Disney film,
>you are definitely violating Disney's copyright and
>they will come after you.

Just wonder, what will happen if I create my own comments on that film on
_separate_ cassete, then bundle it with legally obtained (bought) original
thing, and begin to sell such packages? If this may be considered as copyright
violation, then - at which step it occurs?


Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Wes Groleau]

> > But I _can_ claim copyright on the parts that I did.
> 
> Not really! You can't just go around creating deriviative
> works without the original author's permission, since this

That's not what I said.  I choose not to participate
in the discussion of whether what I copied was legal.
But portions were not "copied."  I have the right to ask
anyone, including the original author, to not copy
those portions.  That is completely independent
of whatever permissions are on the original unchanged
item.

The above statement is consistent with both information
at the library of congress and guidelines issued by
my current employer's corporate counsel for material
we acquire and then modify.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Darren New]

"Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" wrote:
> Just wonder, what will happen if I create my own comments on that film on
> _separate_ cassete, then bundle it with legally obtained (bought) original
> thing, and begin to sell such packages? If this may be considered as copyright
> violation, then - at which step it occurs?

FWIW, I've seen a similar thing done in the US many time. You buy the
software (or whatever), mail it to the patch author, the patch author
applies the patch and mails it back to you. So that would probably be OK
in some sense.

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
   The 90/10 rule of toothpaste: the last 10% of 
         the tube lasts as long as the first 90%.

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[Robert Dewar]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message news:<3CDAA2DA.4526E848@san.rr.com>...
> "Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" wrote:
> > Just wonder, what will happen if I create my own 
> > comments on that film on
> > _separate_ cassete, then bundle it with legally
> > obtained (bought) original
> > thing, and begin to sell such packages? If this may be 
> > considered as copyright
> > violation, then - at which step it occurs?

That sounds fine. As long as the two are separate, and your
tape is otherwise on secure grounds, no problem

 
> FWIW, I've seen a similar thing done in the US many time. 
> You buy the
> software (or whatever), mail it to the patch author, the 
> patch author
> applies the patch and mails it back to you. So that would 
> probably be OK
> in some sense.

Probably not. I have never heard of this being done, and it
would almost certainly be a copyright violation.

As an example, consider the company that was marketing
copies of Titanic with the "good parts" bleeped out of
the tape. They bought new tapes and modified them, but
the film company went after them on the grounds that
they were creating an unauthorized derived version. The
case settled, and the product was off the market, so
we don't have a judicial judgment here, but it was 
pretty clear that the company would have won.

Re: More on copyright

[Jeffrey Carter]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> As an example, consider the company that was marketing
> copies of Titanic with the "good parts" bleeped out of
> the tape. They bought new tapes and modified them, but
> the film company went after them on the grounds that
> they were creating an unauthorized derived version. The
> case settled, and the product was off the market, so
> we don't have a judicial judgment here, but it was
> pretty clear that the company would have won.

If you sell the derived work, that is clearly a violation. But if I take
my legal copy of Titanic and create a version with Jar Jar Binks edited
out for my personal enjoyment, that's clearly fair use. If I show my
version to my friends (without charging for it), that's fair use, too.
If I give copies of my version to my friends, that's less clear, but
probably fair use. If I have millions of friends and give them copies
via the internet, things get murky. But charging for it without
permission is always a violation.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You couldn't catch clap in a brothel, silly English K...niggets."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: More on copyright

[Hyman Rosen]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> But if I take my legal copy of Titanic and create a version
 > with Jar Jar Binks edited out for my personal enjoyment,
 > that's clearly fair use.

Not clear at all. <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107>

Re: More on copyright

[Jeffrey Carter]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> 
> Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> > But if I take my legal copy of Titanic and create a version
>  > with Jar Jar Binks edited out for my personal enjoyment,
>  > that's clearly fair use.
> 
> Not clear at all. <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107>

The right of individuals to make copies of copyrighted material for
their own personal non-commercial use has been established by the courts
as fair use. Some examples include recording TV shows and backing up
software.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"I blow my nose on you."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[AG]

"Robert Dewar" <dewar@gnat.com> wrote in message
news:5ee5b646.0205100932.279fb402@posting.google.com...
> Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:<3CDAA2DA.4526E848@san.rr.com>...
> > "Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" wrote:
> > > Just wonder, what will happen if I create my own
> > > comments on that film on
> > > _separate_ cassete, then bundle it with legally
> > > obtained (bought) original
> > > thing, and begin to sell such packages? If this may be
> > > considered as copyright
> > > violation, then - at which step it occurs?
>
> That sounds fine. As long as the two are separate, and your
> tape is otherwise on secure grounds, no problem

Looks like the term "separate" is the key in this discussion.
However, what happens if the changes can't be separated?

Consider a case where someone owns a legaly obtained copy
of an ancient software (let's say RT11 or so for the sake of
argument) which has been extensively modified for the personal
use. Now, the person would like to give that extensively modified
version to a friend who's also interested in such relics. All the
original paperwork would be long since lost, the company that
created that is no more (for some years), it's buyer is about to
go out of existence too. So, how far do the checks extend?
Is a user who have no idea of the original owner of the work
(considering that the original owner no longer exist) required to
hire some private eyes just to trace who *may* or *may not*
own that piece of software at the moment? If anyone that is...

Re: More on copyright, (Re: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

[tmoran]

> Is a user who have no idea of the original owner of the work
> (considering that the original owner no longer exist) required to
> hire some private eyes just to trace who *may* or *may not*
> own that piece of software at the moment? If anyone that is...
  That's why you should hire a lawyer.  He might tell you that to
be perfectly safe, you'll have to get the private eye to determine
that the owner, his heirs, his creditors, etc etc are all dead; or
you can take a big risk and not hire any private eye at all, or
you can select how much safety you want to pay for.  Part of a
lawyer's job is, in cases of legal uncertainty, to inform you about
risks of various courses of action.

Re: More on copyright

[Robert Dewar]

Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:<3CDC8F3F.16D71C00@acm.org>...
 
> The right of individuals to make copies of copyrighted material for
> their own personal non-commercial use has been established by the courts
> as fair use. Some examples include recording TV shows and backing up
> software.

No, that's misleading and wrong, as is your previous post. Please
don't invent.
It sounds like you have not even read the copyright statute. The right
to make
backup copies is NOT fair use, it is a statuory provision, see section
117 of the copyright code. This section at least is something everyone
should read,
see the previous message in the thread for a link to the statute.

The right to record TV shows on conventional VCR tapes for the purpose
of time shifting was indeed estanlished by the Sony case, but for
example, the right to record on digital apparatus that includes a
mechanism for skipping commercials is not clearly covered and is
currently being contested. The Sony
case decision is really quite limited, and does not for instance
clearly cover
making a VCR tape of a show for a friend. That might be fair use, but
I don't
think you can find a specific case that says it is.

Of course in practice things that individuals do on a sufficiently
small
scale does not get onto the radar screen (that does not mean it is
legal
or fair use, just that no one will bother to sue in practice, the most
you
might get is a cease and desist, for example if you put up a personal
web
site with some star trek images, Paramount will probably tell you to
close
down your site, but probably will not sue).

So if you bleep your own Titanic tape, who knows whether that is OK,
and probably who cares. But when you offer a service for bleeping
other people's
Titanic tapes, that's another matter. Similarly, MP3.COM provided a
service to
enable people to do something that lots of people assume is fair use
(ripping
a CD you own to put on your own MP3 player), but as a service, it was
found
illegal, with damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Fair use
is one
of the very few cases where doing something once can be legal, but
doing
it more than once may be illegal (I know of only one other example,
marriage!)

Fair use is a particularly tricky part of the law, as MP3.COM
discovered!

One general point to acquire from a thread like this is that copyright
law
is quite complex, and that you can't rely on common sense as to what
is
reasonable and what is not. Nor can you rely on other people's
pronouncements
since many of these come from limited knowledge, mixed in with such
common
sense :-)

This thread is of course not particularly relevant to Ada, but some
awareness
of copyright is important. That's particularly true when using freely
downloaded software. If you download a file that has a GPL notice in
it, this
does not mean you have a right to use it. It might be that the GPL
notice was
written by someone who did not have the rights to do so (as in the
event that
started this thread), or perhaps the software contravenes someone
elses patent
rights, in which case you can end up responsible. Nothing special
about freely
downloaded software here of course, the same is true for commercial
software,
although in that case you presumably have a formal license from some
company
which does take responsibility. Again, what you do for your own
private use
is unlikely to be a problem in practice, but as soon as you go outside
this
(e.g. by selling or widely distributing, or widely announcing on a
news group
etc), you are definitely raising the stakes.

Re: More on copyright

[Robert Dewar]

Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:<3CDC0FB7.8A1793BD@acm.org>...

> If you sell the derived work, that is clearly a violation. But if I take
> my legal copy of Titanic and create a version with Jar Jar Binks edited
> out for my personal enjoyment, that's clearly fair use.

Well your example is a bit peculiar, I don't think the owners of Titanic
can complain if you bleep out Jar Jar Binks from Titanic :-) :-)

But when anyone says "that's clearly fair use" I suggest you immediately
raise your skepticism shields to full strength, since such statements almost
always mean "I think that from a common sense point of view, this should
be fair use", rather than "the statute or court case bla makes this fair
use". Note that even a court case often creates a precedent only for the
circuit involved, unless it is appealed. Even Altai vs Computer Associates
is not the law of the land, but only of the particular circuit (though other
circuits do tend to follow this particular ruling, which incidentally I
strongly recommend all computer people read).

Re: More on copyright

[Ted Dennison]

dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote in message news:<5ee5b646.0205110431.5383f80b@posting.google.com>...
> Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:<3CDC0FB7.8A1793BD@acm.org>...
> 
> > If you sell the derived work, that is clearly a violation. But if I take
> > my legal copy of Titanic and create a version with Jar Jar Binks edited
> > out for my personal enjoyment, that's clearly fair use.
> 
> Well your example is a bit peculiar, I don't think the owners of Titanic
> can complain if you bleep out Jar Jar Binks from Titanic :-) :-)

You might try to *add* him to Titanic for your personal
enjoyment...except that the idiot has gills, so he'd probably not be
bothered by the sinking at all.

Maybe he can't live in salt water, or he'd get hypotermia or
something...


-- 
T.E.D. 
Home     -  mailto:dennison@telepath.com (Yahoo: Ted_Dennison)
Homepage -  http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html (down)

Re: More on copyright

[Marin David Condic]

"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:4519e058.0205130613.702d5c06@posting.google.com...
>
> Maybe he can't live in salt water, or he'd get hypotermia or
> something...
>
We can always hope....

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com

Re: More on copyright

[Jeffrey Carter]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote in message news:<5ee5b646.0205110431.5383f80b@posting.google.com>...
> > Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:<3CDC0FB7.8A1793BD@acm.org>...
> >
> > > If you sell the derived work, that is clearly a violation. But if I take
> > > my legal copy of Titanic and create a version with Jar Jar Binks edited
> > > out for my personal enjoyment, that's clearly fair use.
> >
> > Well your example is a bit peculiar, I don't think the owners of Titanic
> > can complain if you bleep out Jar Jar Binks from Titanic :-) :-)
> 
> You might try to *add* him to Titanic for your personal
> enjoyment...except that the idiot has gills, so he'd probably not be
> bothered by the sinking at all.
> 
> Maybe he can't live in salt water, or he'd get hypotermia or
> something...

OK, so I made a mistake. What I really meant was to take your copy of
Steer Wares Episode I The Phantom Menace and edit out the sex and nude
scenes with Kate Winslet.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail