On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 03:22:27AM +0200, Nicolas Kratz wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 12:22:31PM +1200, Adam Warner wrote:
> > There is a very simple rule of thumb you haven't grokked: If you haven't
> > been granted the permission to do something covered by copyright law in
> > the licence then you don't have that permission. Once you realise this it
> > will be easy to identify some licenses as not being DFSG-free.
>
> Cha-CHING! Thanks a whole lot, that was indeed an important - and
> missing - piece of the puzzle. So, unless I can persuade the copyright
> holder to relicense, no go.
In my opinion Adam Warner overstated the case a little bit, though. The
scope of copyright law is not defined as "all human activity". Strictly
speaking, in the U.S. anyway, it is pretty much limited to the
distribution of copies ("copy-right") of an original, creative work,
whether in its original form or a modified version (which may be a
"derivative work").
That said, many jurisdictions in the world, and many copyright cartel
lobbying groups, tend to interpret copyright law as forbidding
modification of works even for private purposes (no more highlighting
your textbooks or watching that DVD in a Linux-based computer!), and
also tend to regard possession of self-made copies of the work in
quantity as a priori evidence of intend to distribute infringing
materials (want to make two "archival copies" instead of one -- go
directly to jail!).
--
G. Branden Robinson | We either learn from history or,
Debian GNU/Linux | uh, well, something bad will
branden@debian.org | happen.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Bob Church
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