Re: copyright law wackyness
* Bernhard R. Link:
> * Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> [111225 18:30]:
>> Germany has the same problem, I think, because in order to protect
>> authors from distributors (which are often quasi-monopolistic), there
>> are limits to what license grants authors can make. As a result, a
>> similar situation could theoretically arise. My favorite example is
>> an author objecting to a Windows port of her software, on the grounds
>> that it's misrepresentation of her work.
>
> I don't think there is much danger in that regard (wacky judges can
> make everything a problem, so let's assume judges with brains). An author
> can withdraw his work if he "changed his opinion", but that only takes
> effect until he paid everyone owning a copy enough money to cover the
> direct costs of it no longer being available.
Oh, I agree it's an unlikely outcome. However, German copyright law
intends to protect authors against too permissive licensing demands,
so such permissive grants are not entirely without problems (even
though those protections rarely help authors in practice). There is
also one case where the legislator has decided to make a specific
permissive grant possible, provided that the general public receives
non-exclusive exploitation rights.
Compared to the other effects of authors walking back from their
original licensing, I think the impact of copyright law is quite
minimal.
Reply to: