On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:17:58 pm Rugxulo wrote:
Hi,
On 8/13/10, Steven D'Aprano steve@pearwood.info wrote:
But we're not discussing what "should be", but what *is*,
Even if we cared enough to find out (and apparently none of us do, or don't know who to ask), the way it *is* could change yet again by the time we finish GPC 2015.
Yes. So what? You have to consider the laws as they are *now*, not how they might be some time in the indefinite future.
Besides, like I said, what if your country doesn't approve of such laws?
Then you won't be infringing your own country's laws, and you have nothing to worry about so long as you don't distribute the software in countries where it is infringing.
[...]
and the legal reality is that works like P5, even without a copyright notice, *are* copyrighted and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
P5 is Scott's (heavy) modification. I don't know if it's enough to constitute a whole "new" work or just another derivative.
It's a derivative.
He says his work is PD.
If he is infringing the P4 copyright, he doesn't have the right to write P5 in the first place, let alone to put it into the public domain.
I don't equate copyright infringement with theft, but the analogy sometimes is useful. If you steal a diamond, and put it into a ring, and then give that ring away, the recipient is still receiving stolen goods. The excuse "But Scott said I could have it" is worthless. (The excuse "but I didn't know it was stolen" *might* help, but that's not always a given, and regardless, you don't get to keep the ring.)
And Pemberton publishes his book online for free now (though he didn't write P4 himself, right??). That should tell you something, even if it's not legally airtight.
No, it doesn't tell you anything. "You can download this book for free" is not the same as "You can write derivative works from this" or "you can re-distribute it". These are separate rights.
(Scott says several commercial compilers used P4 as a basis. So apparently they didn't mind!!)
Scott has no credibility in my mind. The legal theories he has been promoting in this thread are beyond ridiculous, e.g. the theory that works enter the public domain if you *know about* (not even approve of, or give permission to, but merely *know*) somebody -- anybody -- giving away copies for free.
That means that using such a work puts you in legal jeopardy unless you get an explicit licence to use it.
Right, but who to ask? I assume Pemberton, he should know better than any of us. But if even he didn't write it, how can we be sure who did?
Ask the author if he is the copyright holder, and if so, what rights is he willing to give.