[wp-docs] More on Copyright

[Scott Merrill]

I am not a lawyer.  Anything I say should not be construed as legal advice.

Ryan Boren wrote:
> Vanity links are not comptaible with open source licenses.  

Vanity links are different from attribution.  The original BSD license 
required an attribution statement to the regents of the University of 
California.  That was not a vanity link.

> The GPL 
> requires that copyright headers be maintained; that's about it in terms 
> of credit.  It's about the source being free.

Source being free is not the same issue as copyright enforcement.

The GPL _does not_ give you permission to take a document I wrote and 
slap your own copyright statement on it, claiming that you authored it.

If you change one word in my document, you have created a derivative 
work.  That derivative work must _also_ be licensed under the terms of 
the GPL, so other folks can take your work, change one word, and release 
it as a derivative work.

None of that changes my copyright of the original work.  None of the 
folks downstream can assert that they are the creators of that work.  At 
most they can claim to be the creator of the derivative work.

> This comes up all the time with open media (as opposed to open source) 
> folks.  Open source folks have been at it for a good while and have 
> tread this ground.  Advertising clauses, vanity links, and such are a no 
> no.

Advertising links are a no-no for Richard Stallman, and the Free 
Software Foundation.  The Open Source Initiative is considerably more 
liberal on these issues.

Free Software is a subset of Open Source Software.

>  It's about the code being free, and such links impinge freedom.  

Richard Stallman thinks so, and so the Free Software Foundation thinks so.

> Open source folks worry more about maintaining open distribution and 
> keeping the code free.

Open source folks rightly also worry about copyright control.  The fact 
that the source is available for scrutiny and modification _does not_ 
mean that you are abandoning copyright ownership of the source you 
write.  If that were the case, WordPress would be released into the 
public domain with specific language disclaiming any copyright status.

>> The way I see it, I'm currently on my own. We all are. 
> 
> 
> It's up to you to protect your interests, as with anything.

Yes, it is, and as such the disincentive to misappropriating Codex work 
is extremely small.  A publisher could elect to republish the entire 
Codex in a for-pay book with no source release, because every individual 
contributor would need to take action against them.

Chances are, said publisher has considerably more resources to defend 
themselves than each individual contributor has to bring action.

>> I don't have any chance of looking after my interests though do I ?
> 
> 
> Of course you do.  Sue the bastards!  

In which court should one bring action?  In their local jurisdiction? 
How can one reasonably sue a third party in a different state (or 
country!) on limited funds?

I control the copyright on my contributions, but I may not necessarily 
be able to decide which court will hear my case (if any court will).

> Enlist the various watchdog groups to your cause. 

This is taking action after the fact.  Podz has consistently been 
suggesting that action be taken _before_ any copyright violation occurs, 
to ensure that the best possible outcome be prepared.

>> So when I said that the FSF should be considered, I was not trying to 
>> do anything more than have a single enforceable point of ownership - 
>> something we do not currently have.
> 
> 
> Understandable, but I don't think it's particularly necessary or worth 
> it.  Copyright assignment tends to drive contributors off and adds 
> bureaucracy.

Protection measures of all sorts turn people off; but people pursue them 
because the (perceived) benefit outweighs the (perceived) risk.

Assigning copyright to the FSF (or hell, even WordPress Inc., if that 
ever formalizes) allows that single entity to bring more resources to 
bear against all copyright infringements.   If FSF or WPI owns the 
copyright, they can bring a (hopefully) more effective suit against an 
infringer than a rag-tag collection of people from different states with 
different economy-class attorneys.

Another benefit to a single copyright holder is that that entity is then 
in a position to license the work to other parties under different 
terms.  If Tim O'Reilly came to WordPress right now and said "I want to 
publish the Codex, donating half of all proceeds to WordPress; but I 
don't want to share our source files", Tim would have to get permission 
from every single contributor.  A single copyright holder would be in a 
position to definitively say yea or nay.  If WPI owned the copyright, 
they could tell Tim "Sure thing!".  There would likely not be much 
uproar from the community were this (admittedly far-fetched) example to 
occur.

-- 
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