On Jun 19, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > How would you relate what you are saying to the recent ruling in the > UK that selling modified ROMS to someone who already has the > original does not violate copyright law? > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080612/0055131385.shtml The question was not for me, but I'll chime in anyway. Seems like the above is an interesting case about fair use, about limiting the power of copyright holders over their works, for the sake of the public interest. Excellent! Now, would you have any reason to expect such a ruling to not have been upheld should the software in the chips have been licensed under the GPL without source code, a la Broadcom? Do you think it would it make any difference if the software in the chips had been distributed under the GPL with source code? > No, I need the owner's permission to have my copy in the first place. This claim is in conflict with the legislations of various jurisdictions I'm relatively familiar with. Where in the world do you claim this to be true? > I don't need his permission to use it As in, reading the book or listening to the song or watching the movie or running the program, yes, correct. > or add my own changes to it. No, in order to modify a work you need permission from the copyright holder and, in some jurisdictions, also from the author (in case the author is allowed by law to assign the copyright to other parties while retaining moral rights, one of which is to object to modifications; this may sound alien to US-centered folks, but it's in the Berne convention and implemented in various legislations around the world) >> If said owner grants that permission only under the condition that >> your modifications have to be distributed under GPL... > Once I have my copy, said owner has no more to say about what I can do > with it. Copyright prevents subsequent redistribution without > permission but it is not anyone else's business if I redistribute the > work that I've added to my copy to someone else who also has a copy of > the original work. You should definitely discuss this matter with a lawyer to get this straightened out. You seem to have misunderstood what the "use the work however you want" phrase you probably heard or read about somewhere amounted to. It's not use as in "create derived works based on", it's use as in "enjoy". That's not regulated by copyright (at least it wasn't before 1996 or so, when provisions that ended up implemented and exaggerated in the DMCA and various other anti-social legislations around the world, were mandated by the WTO, rather than adopted voluntarily by signatory countries at the WIPO. > There are no conditions to receiving a copy a copy under the GPL. That's correct (save for the dupe :-), and that's how copyright works. Just imagine how you'd possibly be able to refrain from breaking the law if someone could just put an illegal copy in your hands while you were asleep, or at your table while you were distracted reading the newspaper at a coffee shop, or some such. It's that who gives you the copy that breaks the law, in case distributing the copy is not permitted by law. The GPL merely restates what most copyright legislations take for granted. This makes leaves room in case some diverge, like GPLv3 does to cover Brazilian software law, that requires a license to be even entitled to run a program. >> Using a library is one thing, taking its code and modifying it >> something quite different; and distributing a copy of the original >> or a modified version are yet again completely different. For each >> of those activities you need separate permissions. > Sometimes. Some of those things are basic rights, recognized > differently in different places. That's correct, fair use exists as court law in some jurisdictions, uses that don't infringe on copyright are explicitly mentioned in copyright laws in others, and these are things you can do regardless of whatever the GPL or any other pure license (i.e., pure grant of permissions, rather than contract) might say. For example, per fair use, you can take a small portion of a pre-existing work and use it in another work that you can then distribute under your own terms. How much a small portion is varies. For example, in Brazil, it was perfectly legal for me to create this: http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/fsfla/whatisthematrix/ In the US, it might not have been, because laws have upheld far shorter limits on reuse of portions of movies. But then, it's a reinterpretation, which might again make it fair use as a parody. It sure is a grey area. Unlike Brazilian law, in which copyright law explicitly mentions some uses you can count on regardless of licenses, fair use in US is a strict matter of jurisprudence, so it remains a grey area until there's a court ruling on the matter. It used to be the case that one could copy an entire work for personal use in Brazil, up to 1998. It no longer is, now you can only copy small portions, and only for the personal use of the person performing the copy. So universities that want to promote culture rather than sell out to the powerful copyright holders permit students to operate photo-copying machines at libraries, as long as they only copy no more than one or two chapters at a time. But this doesn't mean students are entitled to take their copied chapters, replace some passages, write a preface, bind it all and give (or lend, or sell) it to their friends. If you think you can do these things, and count on their being fair use rights all over the place, you're up for unfortunate surprises. I hope not, and I wish it wasn't so, but unfortunately corporate greed has accummulated so much power that they can buy up legislation in detriment of everyone else, while they can claim to not be above the law. And some people still believe their mind-washing BS about copyrights, patents and trademarks holding any similarity, existing to protect their investment rather than the public interest, and their violation bearing any resemblance to stealing. While they're stealing our rights from right under our noses, while we nod along because they call it "property" and we believe in respecting property (without quotes). -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} FSFLA Board Member ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
