[En-Nut-Discussion] RFC: Copyright of trivial code

[Henrik Maier]

Hi Harald,

On 19/03/2011 11:14 PM, Harald Kipp wrote:
> Hi Henrik,
>
> On 3/19/2011 3:48 AM, Henrik Maier wrote:
>> I suggest to remove any copyright headers from trivial files and leave
>> it to lawyers to determine if that trivial file can be protected or not
>> or if it can be considered public domain.
>
> Not adding any copyright notice at all is even more difficult to handle.
> It actually means, that the author didn't provide any license at all.
> It's up to the user to decide whether he risks any copyright violation.
>
>>     * The following source file constitutes example program code and is
>>     * intended merely to illustrate useful programming techniques.  The user
>>     * is responsible for applying the code correctly.
>>     * Re-use of this code is encouraged and the author does not claim any
>> copyright for the following example code.
>
> This may imply, that the author may have "stolen" the code and it's up
> to the user to find out, who's the original author.

Reading it now I agree that the last sentence was poorly worded. It was 
an example anyway and could be replaced with something like put in the 
domain or so.

> As Bernd correctly stated, at least in many European countries you
> cannot disclaim a copyright. Copyrights may expire, but the period is
> fixed by law.

Maybe that topic needs more research or there is some misunderstanding 
what copyright transfer and assignment means.

I believe copyright assignment and transfer can be done in almost any 
country. Definitely in Germany, Australia, UK and the US.

For example most book publisher require the author to transfer copyright 
to the publisher. Open a book and check.

Same applies for the music and film industry. Producers and artists have 
to almost always disclaim all copyrights and transfer them to the 
powerful publishers like Sony and their like.

More relating to us, the GNU software project requires ALL contributors 
to transfer copyright to the Free Software Foundation and they do accept 
contributions from Europe as well which they would not if that would not 
be possible.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html


Henrik