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Steve Bliss wrote:
>
> In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Peter Howkins wrote:
> > Oh and one final implimentation point that may have been missed by the
> > SteerCo, the license chosen will have to apply to parts on an individual
> > basis as the parts are individually copyrighted. You cannot license the
> > library as a whole as it is a collection of copyrighted works.
>
> How are parts individually copyrighted?
>
> Actually, what exactly is a 'part'? Is a shock absorber a single part, or an
> assembly of several parts? How about a minifig torso (as they exist in lego sets)?
>
> If you want to talk about have to copyright atomic components of the library, you
> should probably talk about individual files, not parts. One part may require several
> files. And some helper files are shared between multiple parts.
You are correct here, I should have used the term 'file'
or 'work' instead of 'part'. From a copyright standpoint
I mean 'work of an author'.
> And then there's the issue of having multiple people working on a file. What if
> James Jessiman wrote a part, and then Tore grabbed some of that code, and added some
> more code (maybe for a pattern) to make a new file? Then Orion corrected some
> mistakes in the code? And Steffen BFC'ed it? And Mark Kennedy replaced some of the
> polygons/lines with primitive references? And then Chris Dee cleaned up the header,
> maybe changing the title around?[1]
There are two ways to looks at this issue.
1) Get permission of all those involved and get them to agree to the
license.
2) Consider the modifications as 'derivative works' of the original
work. Copyright remains with the original author and therefore
only one person needs to have their permission asked.
> In this case, who'd have copyright on what? Other than LEGO, who has extensive IP
> over the whole design, because they made the part in the first place.
If lego ever decided to get their lawyers out, they
could probably sue everyone here for lots of cash.
But as this issue has been bypassed throughout this
discussion I'll state that for the purposes of this
license the copyright holders are the authors of the
parts. You can use point 2) that I mentioned earlier
if you believe it makes things simpler.
> I think the only sensible way for LDraw.org to address IP on the library is to thank
> each contributor for their contribution, require them to grant some form of
> non-exclusive, non-revocable license.
You have to swap 'require' with 'ask' as the part authors
are perfectly within their legal and moral rights to say
'No, you may not distribute my work under that license'.
And by the way, all licenses related to copyright are non
revocable. Once the copy has been made under those set of
rules you can't force newer rules onto that copy.
> And then grant user licenses to the whole
> library, and all of its parts.
When you grant a license for the 'library' does that
mean that people won't be able to pick and choose which
parts they might want to redistribute?
Eg. Bob T Fandango author of SimpleCad, a simple program
which ships with 27 of the most used parts.
Should Bob really have to redistribute the 'whole
library' to which he has been licensed to make changes
to? In Bob's case it might quadruple the size of the
download, not a very practical clause. Whereas if each
part is licensed individually but packaged with a message
that says 'these files are covered by this license' then
Bob is able to pick and choose.
> 1) Please don't think I'm making up some extreme case. The names and actions were
> chosen based on authors' frequent activity in regards to library files. :) And
> having 6 sets of busy fingers involved in a single file (over time) is not
> exceptional, but is probably a pretty good guess at the average.
This is very typical of many open development processes,
everything gets thrown into a communal pot. Unfortunately
defining the communal pot is what we're working on right
now, so everyone who did work previously needs to be asked
if that is OK.
I've found an interesting part of the Berne convention
that may simplify some of the legwork involved. The
Berne Convention is the international treaty that
most countries copyright law is based on [1].
In Article 15 "Proof of Authorship" section (3) it
states words to the effect that if a work is submitted
to a publisher without a name attached, the publisher
is assumed to be the rights holder until the author
comes forward.
This means effectively that the publisher (James
Jessiman (and now his estate) and later whomever
was the webmaster of ldraw.org) holds the rights
to a large chunk of parts that were submitted to
them without an authors name on ... might be useful.
But all parts that were submitted with names on
remain the copyright of those people.
Peter
[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: License Intent
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| (...) How are parts individually copyrighted? Actually, what exactly is a 'part'? Is a shock absorber a single part, or an assembly of several parts? How about a minifig torso (as they exist in lego sets)? If you want to talk about have to copyright (...) (20 years ago, 10-Jun-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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