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Re: copyright on binary packages



On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 06:40:38PM +0900, Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:
> I've been "pestered" by the people who pay for the development of
> several of our packages to add a blurb claiming copyright on the
> *binary* packages we build and distribute.  Binary packages built
> and distributed by others are not to be covered by this copyright
> claim.
> 
> Now this strikes my as pretty off-the-wall and impractical, but I
> am wondering whether anyone knows of "prior art" in this area.  If

I think it goes beyond impractical -- I believe it's not legally
enforceable.  The transformation from source to binary form does not contain
any elements of creative input; the process itself is trivially
reproducable, and with the same set of inputs you will produce identical
output every time.

I'd be interested in what purpose they're trying to serve by claiming
copyright protection over the compiled form, especially when they're not
trying to claim protection over builds produced by others.  Could a
trademark do what they're trying to achieve?

> you can come up with good reasons NOT to include such a copyright
> notice, by all means let me know because I would be much happier
> without yet another licence/copyright wart on our packages.

Because it's bloody ridiculous?  Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be a
persuasive argument in the corporate world these days.

> # I've got to convince proprietary software licence/copyright law
> # veterans that have not the foggiest idea about FLOSS, it seems.

Of course.  You don't have to convince the ones that *do* have the idea
already...

- Matt

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