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>>>>> On Thu, 15 Nov 2018, William Hubbs wrote: |
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|
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>> > On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:24:08 +0100 |
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>> > Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote: |
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>> |
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>> >> To say it again, ebuilds have a copyright notice for exactly two |
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>> >> reasons: |
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>> >> |
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>> >> - to protect us against the "innocent infringement" defense under |
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>> >> U.S. law, and |
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>> >> |
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>> >> - because the GPL-2 requires in section 1 to "appropriately publish |
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>> >> on each copy an appropriate copyright notice". |
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>> >> |
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>> >> For both of these, it is irrelevant what the precise contents of the |
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>> >> notice is. If you made a significant contribution to the file, then |
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>> >> you can claim copyright for it, even if there is no copyright notice |
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>> >> at all, of if you aren't mentioned in it. |
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>> >> |
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>> >> IANAL, but I think the case for being listed there explicitly is very |
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>> >> weak. |
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|
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> Here is what the copyright office has to say about copyright notices: |
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|
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> https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf |
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In fact, I was already aware of that document. |
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|
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| Copyright notice is optional for unpublished works, foreign works, |
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| or works published on or after March 1, 1989. When notice is optional, |
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| copyright owners can use any form of notice they wish. |
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|
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All ebuilds have been published after 1989-03-01, so the copyright |
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notice is optional. |
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|
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| Advantages to Using a Copyright Notice |
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| Although notice is optional for unpublished works, foreign works, or |
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| works published on or after March 1, 1989, using a copyright notice |
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| carries the following benefits: |
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| * Notice makes potential users aware that copyright is claimed in the |
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| work. |
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| * In the case of a published work, a notice may prevent a defendant in |
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| a copyright infringement action from attempting to limit his or her |
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| liability for damages or injunctive relief based on an innocent |
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| infringement defense. |
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That is basically what I've said in my first item above. The precise |
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contents of the notice is irrelevant for this, the only important point |
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is having any notice at all. |
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|
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| * Notice identifies the copyright owner at the time the work was first |
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| published for parties seeking permission to use the work. |
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| * Notice identifies the year of first publication, which may be used |
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| to determine the term of copyright protection in the case of an |
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| anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire. |
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| * Notice may prevent the work from becoming an orphan work by |
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| identifying the copyright owner and specifying the term of the |
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| copyright. |
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|
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For "indentifying the copyright owner" nothing short of a complete list |
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will suffice. Especially, a notice like the following (which mentions |
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only "Gentoo Authors" and "Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.") does |
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not help with that at all (i.e., it is no better than the simplified |
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notice): |
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https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/sys-cluster/ceph/ceph-13.2.2-r2.ebuild?id=5f77c21f23bf1c4cfb9e68be7aa27669c8146e8e#n1 |
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Besides, these last three items are pretty much moot for a work released |
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under the GPL-2 (which grants "permission to use"), and I think that |
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even you aren't suggesting that we should go for a complete list of |
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contributors. |
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|
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Ulrich |