Re: [ox-en] Re: Keyword: Free Software Licences
- From: João Miguel Neves <joao silvaneves.org>
- Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 09:14:00 +0100
Sáb, 2007-04-28 às 07:02 -0700, Michael Bauwens escreveu:
Keyword: Free Software Licences
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* Licenses are contracts
Just the usual note: Licenses aren't contracts:
1) You don't have to agree to them.
That's exactly what defines a contract
I'm sorry, but unless someone turned the definition of contract
completely around, you are wrong. A contract is an agreement between two
or more parties. If you don't have to agree with it, then it's not an
agreement.
You can find several definitions on the web for contract. I don't know
in which country you are, but you'll easily find one for your country.
2) The restrictions are imposed by copyright law.
3) The license can not impose restrictions not in
the law. It can only
reduce the restrictions as defined by the law.
Yes, it can impose restrictions not in copyright law,
that's exactly what a contract is about, and what the
GPL and CC licenses are about, to create restrictions
on the private appropriation of the common
1) A license can't impose restrictions not on copyright law.
2) You don't need a contract to impose limitations on reproduction of a
work - copyright law and international treaties do it: check article 9
of the Berne Convention, for an example:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html (the
authorization refered to is a right of the author, there's no need for
an agreement with anyone else)
3) For imposing restrictions other than those of copyright law, you need
a contract. And for a contract to be legally binding, whoever is bound
by it, must agree to it (you can't been drawn into a contract you have
not agreed to).
4) GPL and CC are licenses that explicitely exercise the rights of
authorization given by copyright laws in a way that remove the
limitations provided by the default behavior of copyright law.
"The essence of copyright law, like other systems of property rules, is
the power to exclude. The copyright holder is legally empowered to
exclude all others from copying, distributing, and making derivative
works.
This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that
is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden.
Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within
the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but
because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license
permits." - Eben Moglen (one of the creators of the GPLv2) in Enforcing
the GPL - http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-13.html
I hope this has cleared up the terms.
Best regards,
João Miguel Neves
PS: In case it still isn't clear the part doing the "appropriation of
the common" by default is the copyright law, not the licenses.