On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 05:26:11PM -0500, David Starner wrote: > On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 05:17:48PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: > > > As a small example, consider that someone might wish to condense part of > > > your book into a reference card that can be mounted on a mousepad. > > > Unfortunately, the license will requires that Ian M's history of Debian > > > be reproduced on this reference card somehow, thereby making it less > > > useful. Would you still say the reader has all necessary freedoms? > > Excerpting is allowed by copyright law under the fair use principle, and > > one need not accept any license governing a work to exercise that right > > to fair use. > What's the line? Using any descriptions would put you in serious danger > on something as small as a reference card (if it were to be sold > commerically.) Even if I'm wrong, there's still the problem that fair > use isn't very well defined, especially not internationally. It's much > nicer to have the clear approval of the author. If you're concerned that fair use is not sufficiently well-protected at the international level, perhaps it would be worthwhile to ask the FSF that they build such protection into their GFDL? If the main objections people have to the GFDL are in connection with derived works commonly held to fall under 'fair use', then this seems like a reasonable solution to me. Of course, I don't think that's the only objection people have to the GFDL. But as far as condensing a book onto a mousepad goes, that doesn't do much for arguing against the GFDL, either, because it would be nearly impossible to prove copyright infringement in that case. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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