Re: Roll ChangeLog, update copyrights, but

[Daniel Berlin <dberlin at dberlin dot org>]

On Thursday, January 9, 2003, at 12:39  PM, Michael Elizabeth Chastain 
wrote:

> Andrew Cagney asks:
> > It occured to me though, can the (C) update be left until just before 
> > a
> > branch and made part of the release process?  It might make everyones
> > life easier (well ignoring the release manager :-).
> I am not a lawyer, just an engineer armchair lawyer wannabe.
And i'm just a second year law student (though i've taken and passed 
copyright law), and THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE (sorry, the bar is 
*extremely* touchy on unauthorized practice of law)
> I think that the daily snapshots constitute publication of the work,
> especially since we give public notice of them on
> http://sources.redhat.com/gdb/current.
I'd agree.
The 1976 Copyright Act defines publication as follows:

Publication is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to 
the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, 
or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a 
group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public 
performance, or public display constitutes publication. A public 
performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute 
publication.

> Could you ARI the copyrights?  Something like: if the file has been
> modified since 2002-12-31, and the file has a "copyright" line in it,
> then "2003" must appear on the copyright line or the line after that.
Just to be pragmatic, notice hasn't been required for a few years now, 
in order to have a valid copyright. It's specifically *not* required 
anymore (as part of the Berne convention implementation)
It's just required to avoid the innocent infringer defense, and to 
allow you to seek certain types of damages.
So it's not something that must be immediately caught, all the time, 
unless you expect people to be suing gdb code stealers all the time.

> Michael C