[debian-knoppix] Taredemark vs copyright.
On January 28, 2003 09:58 am, Klaus Knopper wrote:
> The english term "Copyright", as far as I know, means both together,
> the rights of authorship and the exploitation rights.
I'm not much of a lawyer, but here's what I can come out with using sheer
common sense.
You cannot open a store called Walmart because, even though Wlamart has no
copyright on anything it sells, Walmart is a TM of Walmart. This goes without
saying and is usually not indicated. It's better not to use family names for
companies as other people named the same as you could have a right to use
their name... though we had a department store called Simpson's in Montreal.
If you are contemplating to soon use a name for a company, you can reserve it
by asking for a TM.
A copyright is given to somebody -- an individual, a corporation, etc. -- for
work -- a song, a novel, a chemical process, an OS, etc. -- which is unique,
something that hasn't been done before, so that nobody can copy it during a
certain amount of time.
It seems if anybody came to the same result before you and didn't ask for a
copyright, this person is entitled to use what you have a copyright on but
not to sell it to another party. But Red Hat, better know as Bed Rat, lawyers
pretend that they could be prevented from using their programs if anybody put
a standard copyright on them. So they recently asked for copyrights at the
copyright office for certain of Bed Rat's programs. I'm not sure if this
makes any sense. It's a complex matter. Lawyers make a hell of a lot of money
out of this nonsense.
Of course, if you have a copyright on something, you give it a name, you call
it Arborite, Melamine or "Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu", nobody can
come with a product, mainly for the same purpose, using the same name.
Usually, when you have a copyright, you also have a trademark.
Linus Torvalds has a copyright on Linux under the Gnu Public License and it's
hence very likely he also owns the trademark Linux so that Jean-Louis Gassée
couldn't have named his OS Linux. When I wrote: "Linux is © Linus Torvalds.
Nobody can start another OS called Linux." I believe I really wasn't too far
off.
This discussion could go on forever. Following a really stupid Supreme Court
ruling about three years ago, it seems Canadians have a "copyright" on their
face. Their "droit à la vie privée" apparently extends to public places.
Also, can you call a refrigerator a frigidaire, facial tissue, a Kleenex?
Etc, usw.
Certainly Mr Glaude is not making much of a name for himself with this kind of
hair splitting discussions and promoting wikis to write documentation. I'd be
much better off spending his time learning how Mozilla works.
Gilles Pelletier
--
La Masse critique
http://pages.infinit.net/mcrit
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