[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal
From: |
Tim Smith |
Subject: |
Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal |
Date: |
Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:13:11 -0700 |
User-agent: |
MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b2 (Intel Mac OS X) |
In article <JdU4k.4882$3F5.3706@bignews2.bellsouth.net>,
Linonut <linonut@bollsouth.nut> wrote:
> * rjack peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
> > Linonut wrote:
> >
> >> The rights comprised in a copyright may be subdivided and
> >> transferred. 17 U.S.C. 201(d)(2) ("Any of the exclusive rights
> >> comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of
> >> the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as
> >> provided by clause (1) and owned separately."). In other words,
> >> a copyright holder may transfer the right to duplicate to one
> >> person, the right to distribute to another, and the right to
> >> produce derivative works to yet another. See ITOFCA Inc. v.
> >> MegaTrans Logistics, Inc., 322 F.3d 928, 929-30 (7th Cir.2003)
> >> ("Making and selling are distinct rights and you can assign one
> >> without the other.").
> >>
> >> Thanks for pointing me to that succinct validation of the methodology of
> >> the GPL.
You've confused a couple similar things, I'm afraid. I will illustrate
with an example. I am the copyright owner on numerous works (as are all
of us here, probably). Let's say we have one particular work of mine, W.
I have, among other things, the exclusive right to make copies of that
work and the exclusive right to distribute copies of that work.
You can I could execute a contract under which I give you permission to
make and distribute copies. If we do that, I have not *transferred*
those rights to you. I have given you a license that gives my
permission for you to make and distribute copies, thus making your acts
no longer a copyright violation.
If someone else comes along and starts making copies and distributing
them, that doesn't legally concern you. I'm the one who has to take
action if the cad is to stopped. (Of course, we might have in our
contract that I promise to enforce my copyrights against third parties
for your benefit...).
Or I could actually *transfer* the rights to you. In effect, I would
then have given you ownership of part of the copyright. When that third
party comes along and starts making and distributing copies, *you* could
go after him, because I've transferred ownership or partial ownership of
the copyright to you.
Pretty much every software license (including GPL) involves the first
case. You do not receive any ownership interest in the covered
software. You just receive permission from the copyright owner to do
certain things that the law says you need permission to do if you are
not the owner.
Think if it this way. Suppose we have a building that contains a number
of residential units. The first case above corresponds to renting or
leasing out those units. The second case corresponds to turning the
building into condominiums and selling off the individual units.
In software, a license like, say, a Microsoft license, is like the
landlord letting us rent our units. A free software license that is a
contract (pretty much all of them except the GPL, assuming the attempt
by the GPL authors to avoid contract works) is like a lifetime lease
that has no ongoing fees, and a free software license that is just a
bare license (what the GPL authors intend) is like...is like...well,
nothing really good comes to mind with the landlord analogy! :-)
> >
> > Uhhhh... 17 USC 201(d) begins:
> >
> > "Transfer of ownership.
> > (1)
> > The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part
> > by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed
> > by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate
> > succession.
> > (2)
> > Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any
> > subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106 [17 USC 106],
> > may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The
> > owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of
> > that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the
> > copyright owner by this title."
> >
> > Are you seriously suggesting that use of the GPL transfers ownership of
> > the copyrights rights? Methinks more than the sky is falling.
>
> Why did you ignore the "subdivided" or "in part" part?
>
> Deliberate obfuscsation, or did you just not think it through?
He didn't ignore it. He simply caught the distinction between
transferring rights and licensing rights.
> Also, although I don't know this for sure, it would seem that you can
> transfer rights, and yet also keep them, in the same way that you can
> give out a copy of software, yet keep your own copy.
Sort of. In the case of software licensing, as I've described above,
you aren't transferring rights.
In the case where you really do transfer rights, you can indeed both
transfer and keep them (or transfer them to more than one person).
Copyright rights are similar to personal property. People can jointly
own items of personal property. Heck, that ability is the basis of many
good sitcom scripts, like when Rob Petrie and Jerry Helper jointly
bought a boat on the Dick van Dyke Show, and hilarity ensued. Or when
Bart, Milhouse, and Martin pooled their resources to buy a copy of
Radioactive Man #1 in episode 7F21 of The Simpsons, and again, hilarity
ensued.
--
--Tim Smith
- Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Alexander Terekhov, 2008/06/13
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/13
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, rjack, 2008/06/13
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/14
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, rjack, 2008/06/14
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/14
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, rjack, 2008/06/14
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/14
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal,
Tim Smith <=
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Hadron, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Miles Bader, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Linonut, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Hadron, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Moshe Goldfarb., 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Rick, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, David Kastrup, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Miles Bader, 2008/06/15
- Re: Red Hat pays $800,000 + costs for a patent deal, Hadron, 2008/06/15