RE: [Non-DoD Source] Re: Which is better, assignment of rights, or licensing rights? (Tentacles of Evil Test)

["Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US)" <cem.f.karan.civ@mail.mil>]

On Wednesday, October 17, 2018 5:44 PM Florian Weimer wrote:
>* Cem F. Karan:
>
>> When I use the term "assignment", I mean that the original
>> copyright/IP owner gives the ownership of the IP to some other
>> entity.  The problem is that the new owner can choose new licensing
>> terms as they fit, as the IP is now their property.  Choosing
>> licensing means that there are many, many different actors working
>> together; if one arbitrarily changes the license terms for what they
>> own, it has no effect on the parts that they don't own.  For
>> example, if you and I are working on a project together, I can
>> choose to change the license on the portions of the code that I
>> own[1], but this has no effect on your property, which makes it
>> pointless for me to try to change the license as I can't take over
>> what you own.  However, if you had assigned the IP rights in what
>> you developed to me, I could choose the license that material is
>> redistributed under[2], potentially sending you a cease & desist
>> letter when you try to redistribute material you generated.
>
>The flip side is that without effective assignment, the copyright
>situation becomes so murky that you are seriously limited in what you
>can do with a work.  We have enough experience today that suggests
>that is generally not the case with free software licensing, despite
>the highly informal nature of the arrangements.  That outcome must not
>have been obvious 20, 30 years ago, which may have prompted some
>people to go after assignments historically.

I accept that it was a difficult question when OSS principles and licenses
were being developed, but I think things are clearer today than they were back
then (or at least, there is a lot of prior art that people will be relying on
going forwards).  Given that, I'm suggesting that we should favor licensing
over assignment of rights.  That's all.

>> [1] Good OSS licenses ensure that it is impossible to retroactively
>> revoke any permissions granted, so material that is already out
>> there should stay out there.
>
>OSS licenses cannot circumvent applicable law.  The EU is working on
>giving authors new inalienable rights in this area, allowing them to
>claim additional compensation.

Absolutely true.  I'm not an EU citizen and not familiar with the changes
being promulgated, can you briefly describe what the EU is planning?

>> [2] Unless you were clever, and assigned the rights to using some contract
>> clauses that stipulated how the material could be distributed, etc.
>
>The FSF has such provisions in many of their assignment contracts.

I know, and I'm glad that they do.  However, I still prefer licensing over
assignments, simply because of what can happen if a copyright owner is subject
to the whims of a single government.  Large projects tend to have contributers
from across the planet; even if one government decides to do something that
makes common OSS principles impossible to obey, they can only affect the
portions of the code that their citizens in their countries have contributed.
It would hurt a project, but wouldn't kill it, which means that it can survive
the attack.

Thanks,
Cem Karan