Re: Proposed Apache license & patent/reciprocity issues
"Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil@vsnl.net> writes:
> The law, as it stands,does not give you the right to modify, or
> distribute a copyrighted work. But, so long as your's is a legal copy
> you are free to exercise all fair use rights available to you under
> the law of copyright.
What you describe here bears no relation to copyright law in the
United States, and little relation to what I know of the copyright
laws of other nations. For a start, "fair use rights" are not
enumerated in US legislation -- they are alluded to in some laws, and
mentioned in court cases, but intentionally underspecified.
> The non-free licenses take away even your fair use rights because what
> you get is a license, and not a copy itself.
My unsubstantiated impression is that courts have said licenses can't
remove fair use rights.
> You get the fair use rights when what you have is a copy; when you
> are _licensed_ a copy, you get precisely what is licensed to you,
> nothing more, nothing less. The GPL uses this technique employed by
> proprietary licenses to grant you more rights than what is given by
> the ordinary copyright law. GPL #5 takes care of situations where
> you receive an infringing copy.
>
> You can violate the GPL only when you try to distribute a work.
> without complying with its terms. (modification, without
> redistribution, does not attract GPL)
You fail to distinguish between modification of an instance of a work
-- such as sawing a book in half, or writing notes in the margins -- and
creation of a derivative work. Most of what programmers call
"modification" is actually preparation of a derivative work. You have
no right to do so except as granted by a license, such as the GPL.
> Even when you violate the GPL, you still can continue to use the
> work itself. That is a wonder of the law of copyright, not the GPL.
> The GPL applies ONLY to (a) modifications, (2) distribution /
> copying, and (3) distributing extracts or modified
> copies. Therefore, you are mistaken in statements 4 and 5 above.
>
> GPL 4 and 5 simply reminds you the effect of law and the provisions of
> the GPL.
What you say here is exceptionally misleading.
-Brian
> Again, people receiving derivative works get rights in entire works,
> not a license to the derivative works. So, #2 above is a bit off the
> mark.
>
> Hope that clears things up.
>
> --
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
>
> Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,
> 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,
> Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,
> Kerala, India.
>
> http://in.geocities.com/paivakil
>
> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
--
Brian T. Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
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