Re: Is license text copyrightable? [was: Re: Is OSL 2.0 compliant with DFSG?]
Francesco Poli wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 09:44:18 -0400 Jeremy Hankins wrote:
>
>> This license is Copyright (C) 2003 Lawrence E. Rosen. All rights
>> reserved. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this
>> license without modification. This license may not be modified
>> without the express written permission of its copyright owner.
Oy. Will people *cut* this *out*? There's no *point* in putting your
license text under a restrictive license, even if you can.
> This brings up the question (once again): is a legal text, such as a
> copyright license, copyrightable? In which jurisdictions?
Not in the US. No idea about other countries.
> I know that, of course, people other than copyright holders of a given
> work *cannot* change the license _applied_ to that work.
>
> But can they pick the license text and modify it in order to create
> _another_ license (with different license name)?
In the US.
> Discussions about the GNU GPL preamble and the GPL FAQ[1] seem to
> suggest that legal text is not considered copyrightable.
Not in the US.
> [1] compare <http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL>
> and copyright notice in <http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt>
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