Re: Design principles and ethics

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Fri, 5 May 2006 15:17:33 +0200,
Pierre THIERRY <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
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> Scribit Bas Wijnen dies 05/05/2006 hora 15:06:
> > > I'm pretty sure it is impossible to have copyright on a work on
> > > public domain. Maybe on the part that is added to it, but not on it
> > > itself.
> > That is correct, but they aren't obliged to actually tell which parts
> > are the things they have copyright on.
> 
> Yes they are. Or they would be violating your inalienables rights. At
> least in France, but I'm sure our law on IP is just a transposition of
> it's international version.

I am sure that even in France maps and phone books (for example) have
arbitrary phony entries to be able to prove that a copy has been made
in a copyright dispute.

Without clearly identifying what these false entries are (doing so
would completely defeat their purpose), it is impossible to use the
uncopyrighted part for your own work.

This is a significant problem.  See for example the OpenStreetMap
project:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Copyright_Easter_Eggs

Also, electronic versions of books that are in the public domain are
often encumbered by DRM, even if they are completely unedited copies
(except for layout, I suppose).  Lawrence Lessig has documented
several of such cases, including the US consitution and, if I recall
correctly, his own book.

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001993.shtml
(The other example was in a talk at WOS 3).

Thanks,
Marcus