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Re: The GFDL is _not_ a public license, says dak


From: RJack
Subject: Re: The GFDL is _not_ a public license, says dak
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:19:15 -0500
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812)

David Kastrup wrote:
Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

How come that

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

says

"Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you".



That does not make the licensee able to act as licensor with all the
 possibilities upstream has.


You will never convince Free Softies that a non-exclusive license CANNOT
empower a licensee to further authorize copyright permissions for
"downstream" licensees. With a non-exclusive license such as the GPL the
only thing a licensee can do is effect a transfer of his "contractual
interest".

The Copyright Act, 17 USC 106, states that "Subject to sections 107
through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive
rights to do and to authorize any of the following:...".


Unfortunately, Free Softies are so wacked-out on Moglen's "Freedom"
Kool-Aid that they are incapable of rational understanding of the words
"exclusive" and "author" as used in the Copyright Act.

If "authorizing" is reserved as "exclusive" for the "author" of a work
how does a "non-owner" do any authorizing?

Mentioning little contradictions in logic such as this simply causes
Free Softies eyes to glaze over and total deafness sets in. In 24 hours
time they are back out in the Blogosphere blathering about the GPL
authorizing "downstream" licensees as if there were actually a linear
downstream set of distinct licensees existing.

Pity the poor Free Softies.

Sincerely,
RJack



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