Copyright status and US-govt-created works (was: debian/copyright file)
Robin Cornelius <robin.cornelius@gmail.com> writes:
> There are a couple of files that do NOT have copyright, these were
> created by a US government contractor and therefor :-
>
> Copyright: It is the policy of NLM (U.S. National Library of Medicine)
> (and U.S. government) to not assert copyright.
For the question of copyright status, it is (currently) irrelevant
under copyright legislation what the *policy* of the (potential)
copyright holder might be. Copyright accrues to works, or not,
regardless of what their policy is.
So, this statement doesn't explain what the copyright status is. It's
more accurate to say something like:
Copyright: The NLM (U.S. National Library of Medicine), as a U.S.
government organisation, by U.S. law does not hold copyright
in works it creates.
The wording likely needs to be scrutinised by someone more
knowledgeable about the relevant legislation (or, preferably, copied
from an existing statement that has held up under such scrutiny).
Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
> Robin Cornelius <robin.cornelius@gmail.com> writes:
> > Copyright: It is the policy of NLM (U.S. National Library of Medicine)
> > (and U.S. government) to not assert copyright.
> > License: other
> [...]
>
> License here is actually public domain, although I see the wiki page
> doesn't yet allow this, probably because people misuse it who don't
> understand what public domain means.
Agreed on both points. With the copyright status explained more
clearly, this might be more understandable.
--
\ "The WWW is exciting because Microsoft doesn't own it, and |
`\ therefore, there's a tremendous amount of innovation |
_o__) happening." -- Steve Jobs |
Ben Finney
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