Re: Copyright [cgf, please comment]

[Chris Wolfe <cwolfe at globetrotter dot qc dot ca>]

Suhaib Siddiqi wrote:
> 
> Here are the sources
> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/101.html
> 
> and read the whole US Copyright laws here
> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/index.text.html
> 
> It says clearly at some clauses that copying someone else work
> is illegal.  I know that my articles I publish in journal get peer reviewed
> for
> being original work.
> 
> We got some of the people who thinks they know everything and know nothing.
> Anyway my argument is not copyright it is a moral issue of trying to dictate
> and taking others work from an open soruce project to claim your own work.
> 
> Suhaib

This *was* sent as a personal message to Suhaib, but since he
apparently prefers a public forum I will oblige him. (Please feel
free to reply to me personally rather than the list, as this
really has very little use to the general population)

<http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wnp>

"WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT? ... Ideas, procedures,
methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries,
or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or
illustration"

<http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap1.html#101>,
Definitions, "derivative work"

   A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more
   preexisting works, such as ... abridgment, condensation,
   or any other form in which a work may be recast,
   transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial
   revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications,
   which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship,
   is a "derivative work".

Assuming Harold's claim of writing from scratch is true, his
document is obviously not a derivative work. Again: The questions
that need to be covered by the FAQ, and the informational content
of the answers is *not* copyrightable.

Please present sources more specific than the complete text of
the US Copyright legislation and a badly written personal attack.
(Try not to make grammatical errors when talking about "people
who think they know everything and know nothing")

I contribute quite routinely to open-source projects covered
under the GPL, and copyrighted by some random original programmer
(often not the current maintainer). I see absolutely no reason
that a project needs a single global copyright sticker, as the
GNU licenses guarantee freedom to the users of the code/document.

Chris

~~~~~~
Lawyer? No, literate.