Re: Some licensing questions regarding celestia
On Tue, 2 Sep 2003, Don Armstrong wrote:
>On Tue, 02 Sep 2003, Rick Moen wrote:
>> Quoting Don Armstrong (don@donarmstrong.com):
>>> It follows directly from contract law.
>>
>> The falsity of that statement can be seen at a brief glance from the
>> fact that "a license granting unlimited unrevokable rights to the
>> public to use, modify, copy, etc." would be founded in copyright law,
>> rather than copyright law, without even considering the merits of the
>> "public domain dedications".
>Licenses are primarily founded upon Contract Law, not Copyright
>Law. Copyright Law is what grants you the rights to a work which
>you then exchange or give away using a License or Contract.
>Contract Law is what allows you to establish a legally binding
>document to exchange or give away those rights or interests.
Yes. But Copyright Law may impose additional restrictions on
the form and subject of contract. For example in Germany, Russia
and, probably, many other countries with German-derived copyright
law you should enumerate every specific right, transferred by the
contract. If right is not explicitly enumerated, it is not
transferred.
The intent of "public domain" license is clear. But the form
of contract may be considered invalid, under some circumstances.
>(2) Those that are dedicated to the public domain by license or
>contract.
>In order for (2) to be legally indeterminate, there needs to be
>applicable statutory or case law limiting the rights which a
>copyright holder can give away. If there is no case law or statute
>limiting those rights, the rights can be given away.
Yes. Under many jurisdictions copyright holder can't
simultaneously give away all his rights.
Reply to: