Re: [glob2-devel] who has copyright in glob2

[Joe Wells]

Joe Wells <address@hidden> writes:

> donkyhotay <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> FYI my name is kevin but admittedly I rarely use it online. I just read
>> the GPL FAQ a few days ago and I would recommend everyone to read it but
>> here is my understanding of the parts that affect us. First of all in
>> order for something to be placed under GPL it must BE copyrighted and
>> the author must state somewhere that it is copyrighted and under the
>> GPL. If the person just says it's under the GPL but doesn't mention that
>> it's copyrighted, the software can't be protected by the GPL and can
>> legally be "stolen" (since the copyright is the only legal way to assert
>> GPL rights). Now while it has never been officially stated I would
>> assume anyone who didn't bother to list themselves in the authors page
>> would fall under the catagory of not bothering to copyright their glob2
>> submissions and therefore we can do whatever we want with it (like put
>> it in our program and license it under GPL3).
>
> It is good that you want to help with the process of updating to the
> GPL version 3, but what you write above is false and following your
> suggestion could cause serious problems.
>
> A person does not need to make a statement about copyright in order to
> have copyright.  They just need to have authored some material.  The
> Berne convention on copyright (which most countries have joined) makes
> this clear.  In particular countries, whether you make a statement of
> copyright can affect the amount of damages you can claim for copyright
> infringement, but it can not affect whether you have the copyright.

A message I was sent privately leads me to think I should add the
following comments to clarify what I wrote.

A copyright notice helps with enforcing the copyright.  The lack of a
copyright notice does not mean there is no copyright, and it does not
mean that we can disregard the author's wishes.  The lack of a
copyright notice and a clear statement of permission to copy
(generally an accompanying license) on someone else's work in fact
means we might not even have any permission to copy at all.

I hope this helps.

-- 
Joe