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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: Russell McOrmond <russell_-at-_flora.ca>
To: flora-admin-help_-at-_flora.org
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 09:54:08 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Peter Timusk wrote: > There are some photos so I am unsure of where that leaves the > photographer. I have a claim on our garden pages that we retain > copyright for the garden this is not for commercial gain that I do this > but rather a type of data protection so that others don't take our > content modify it and misrepresent us. The license agreement we have been spending most of our time on applies to messages posted to FLORA.org mailing lists, not to the files on FLORA.org websites. In the case of mailing lists it is is a very large number of people, so allowing for one-on-one agreements between myself and the person is simply not reasonable. A blanket "if you want to post to FLORA.org mailing lists, you must agree to these terms" has to exist. Once we finally get over this hump with mailing lists, we can then start to talk about FLORA.org hosted websites which I'll want to have something similar that says that FLORA.org (I) be granted a "royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide nonexclusive license". Some license agreements like those part of the http://www.creativecommons.org/ offer this type of thing to the entire planet, but all I am asking for is that FLORA.org (I) receive this in exchange for my willingness to communicate your message for free. The license agreement with FLORA.org (me) is non-exclusive. This means that you can (and should) have a different license agreement with others. The license on your pages would apply to everyone else except those that you have different agreements with. You are the copyright holder (you retain all the rights to copyright) as soon as you author something. That is just how copyright works, whether you intend something to be copyright or not. As the copyright holder you can have different contractual (license) agreements with different people for the same work. > I do see a problem with comparing literary content like it was linux > source code. I have a problem with this as well, but in the reverse: I dislike the fact that computer source code is treated by the copyright act (of most countries) as a literary work. Then again I have many more problems with techniques that can be expressed in software concurrently being considered an 'invention' by the patent offices of many countries. Please note that this is not related to this specific license agreement. The template I based the FLORA.org agreement on is from a legal website that is unrelated to the Free Software movement in any way. While I have gained an understanding of copyright law because of my interest to protect and promote the Free Software movement, that doesn't mean that "all I know is a hammer, and everything I see is a nail" ;-) Please take a look at http://www.creativecommons.org/ and the FLASH animation at http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/ to see what others are doing. All I am asking for is a license agreement between me and people publishing for $free$ through FLORA.org, but if people wish to take things further they should check out the Creative Commons. > My help and our emails are not copyright. The messages are covered under copyright law whether you want them to or not. You may license these words in an unrestrictive way, or may also try to create a license that attempts to 'release' them into the public domain (for countries that allow you to do that), but the copyright does exist. The license agreement I want to exist between authors using FLORA.org to publicly publish and myself simply protects me (not the entire planet, just me) from being sued by these people at a future date for having dared to do what I thought I was supposed to do which is distribute their articles for free. I am glad that the offer to help is there. One thing we will need is to create a FAQ for this document given the fears expressed in this forum already. I understand that law and legal agreements are not things that most people are familiar or comfortable with so we need to bring people from a position of being fearful to being understanding. I wonder if the order of the documents should be reversed, such as <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/> where the 'normal human readable' version shows up first, and then the legalistic version? Here is a less formal way of saying the most important things -- maybe others can help here to make this as simple and painless as possible: "As a condition of using the $Free$ publishing services of FLORA.org, you are being asked to clearly grant FLORA.org (and its sponsors) the legal right to publish your works. FLORA.org also redistributes these works to other services from time to time, such as discussion group postings distributed via the NNTP news system, and FLORA.org should be given the legal right to do this as well. FLORA.org is just a volunteer labour of love of a few individuals. You have no warranty of any kind. The site may break, the information you receive may be incorrect, or a whole host of other things. This service is available on an as-is, as-available basis. " Treating law like code is sometimes useful, and the FAQ should include a few 'sample test scenarios' so that people can understand when the agreement applies, when it does not, and how it is intended to behave when it does apply. --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than politicians should be bought. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
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