Re: Group Copyright
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@d2dc.net> writes:
> Lots of free software projects are developed by fairly large groups. It
> seems to be a common practice for everyone who contributes to a project to
> be added to the Copyright notice at the top of the file. Is this actually
> wise? IIRC, should it become necessary, legal action cannot be taken by
> just one or two of the Copyright holders - it has to be everybody.
It's unwise, though in general you don't need everyone to agree to
bring an action; each person has independent rights over the part of
it that's theirs. But it is very likely to greatly complicate such
things.
An excellent solution is to assign the rights to the FSF or another
similar organization.
> Another habit I've seen is for projects to list their group as the
> Copyright holder, even if their group is not an incorporated entity. This
> much at least I _know_ is a problem, since no such legal "person" exists
> to defend their rights.
Yeah, that's no better than listing everyone, except that it adds the
additional confusion of exactly who is part of the group.
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