Bug#659574: lintian: legally wrong statement: copyright-with-old-dh-make-debian-copyright
Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.4
Severity: important
Tags: patch
Summary:
copyright-with-old-dh-make-debian-copyright is giving a legally
incorrect statement to lintian users in very annoying way. It is best
removed immediately. -p0 patch attached.
Explanation:
copyright-with-old-dh-make-debian-copyright states:
The copyright file contains the incomplete Debian packaging
copyright boilerplate from older versions of <tt>dh_make</tt>.
<tt>(C)</tt> is not considered as a valid way to express the copyright
ownership. The word <tt>Copyright</tt> or the © symbol should be used
instead or in addition to <tt>(C)</tt>.
The fist sentence is correct but second and third sentences are legally
wrong since 1988 even in USA.
In 1988, USA finally joined "Berne Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic Works"[1] by "Berne Convention Implementation Act
of 1988"[2]. (Almost all other industrialized nations signed it already
by then.) This shifted the legal framework of copyright from Anglo-Saxon
concept of "copyright" to the French "right of the author" (droit
d'auteur) and removed the general requirement for registration of
copyright works and eliminated the mandatory copyright notice.
Since then, "Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights"[3], reinforced this situation on copyright to almost all
nations.
The statement of "(C) is not considered as a valid way to express the
copyright ownership." is even harmful for Debian if we accept this since
this is a widely used method.
Of course, having this text is a good indication of not being DEP-5
compliant. But that test is done separately and it is already marked
"pedantic". So there is no point repeating it here.
FYI:
I know that the web page "How to use GNU licenses for your own
software"[4] states:
Always use the English word “Copyright”; by international convention,
this is used worldwide, even for material in other languages. The
copyright symbol “©” can be included if you wish (and your character set
supports it), but it's not necessary. There is no legal significance to
using the three-character sequence “(C)”, although it does no harm.
But even on this web page, there is statement as follows:
There is no legal requirement to register your copyright with anyone;
simply distributing the program makes it copyrighted.
(I have to admit, this GNU web page seems to be influenced by the
pre-1988 Anglo-US legal requirements.)
Also, I wonder if this recommendation is true, why we have the following
in lintian source :-)
$ grep -r "©" *|wc -l
25
$ grep -r "(C)" *|wc -l
203
Regards,
Osamu
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementation_Act_of_1988
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_Trade-Related_Aspects_of_Intellectual_Property_Rights
[4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
--- copyright-file.orig 2012-02-12 17:30:03.236256560 +0900
+++ copyright-file 2012-02-12 17:31:04.164558703 +0900
@@ -276,10 +276,6 @@
tag 'copyright-contains-dh_make-todo-boilerplate';
}
-if (m,The\s+Debian\s+packaging\s+is\s+\(C\)\s+\d+,io) {
- tag 'copyright-with-old-dh-make-debian-copyright';
-}
-
# Bad licenses.
if (m/The\s+PHP\s+Licen[cs]e,?\s+version\s+2/si) {
tag 'copyright-refers-to-bad-php-license';
--- copyright-file.desc.orig 2012-02-12 17:22:05.901889604 +0900
+++ copyright-file.desc 2012-02-12 17:30:42.460451081 +0900
@@ -259,15 +259,6 @@
check the whole source to find additional copyright/license, or that
you didn't remove that paragraph after having done so.
-Tag: copyright-with-old-dh-make-debian-copyright
-Severity: wishlist
-Certainty: certain
-Info: The copyright file contains the incomplete Debian packaging
- copyright boilerplate from older versions of <tt>dh_make</tt>.
- <tt>(C)</tt> is not considered as a valid way to express the copyright
- ownership. The word <tt>Copyright</tt> or the © symbol should be used
- instead or in addition to <tt>(C)</tt>.
-
Tag: copyright-refers-to-bad-php-license
Severity: serious
Certainty: possible
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