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When does the FSF own your code?When does the FSF own your code?Posted Mar 19, 2013 15:26 UTC (Tue) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715)Parent article: When does the FSF own your code?
In truth, even the FSF appears not to know what is covered by its contributor agreementThis is a bit OT but what the FSF (and Canonical) seem to ignore in this whole copyright assignment discussion is that in some (most?) European countries (at least this is true in Austria and Germany) you cannot transfer copyright to a third party, it is legally not possible. The only way to move copyright from person A to B is by inheritance when A dies. You can grant a license to whomever you want, but you cannot assign copyright to someone else. The copyright remains owned by the author. So it seems like indeed the FSF does not seem to understand its own contributor agreement.
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When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 15:40 UTC (Tue) by jelmer (subscriber, #40812) [Link]
FWIW Canonical has for a while used one of the Harmony CLAs (http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/image...), which involves providing a broad license to the code (and some other things) but no transfer of copyright.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 16:24 UTC (Tue) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link]
I think that is covered by requiring a license if copyright alone would not be enough. My FSF papers say that the "Developer hereby agrees that if he has or acquires hereafter [...] intellectual property interest dominating the work, [...] such dominating interest will not be used to undermine the effect of this assignment, i.e. the Foundation and the general public will be licensed to use, in that program or programs and their derivative works, without royalty or limitation, the subject matter of the dominating interest. This license provision will be binding on the assignees of, or other successort to, the dominating interest [...] nonexclusive, royalty free and non-cancellable. (Sorry for any typos, only have a paper copy here.)
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 17:03 UTC (Tue) by joshuagay (subscriber, #88423) [Link]
"you cannot transfer copyright to a third party, it is legally not possible."
It was explained to me that this is more a semantic difference than a material one.
I was told that US Copyright law is more similar to German "Exploitation Rights" laws. So an "assignment" would be about granting "exclusive right to use" a work under these laws. I was also told that German Copyright law is more like US Moral Rights laws.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 17:11 UTC (Tue) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> It was explained to me that this is more a semantic difference than a material one.
I am not a lawyer but an agreement that states "I hereby assign my copyright of work $foo to person/company/entity $bar" is simply void. You could as well just write "nffiprfiporkwkojkfdowef3#+32313+#23+1" in the agreement it has the same effect.
As for the second part of your comment, I'd have to read up on that, thanks for the pointer though.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 18:16 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
You should probably talk to a lawyer about this some time. While it's true that in German and Austrian law, you cannot transfer copyright (Urheberrecht to be precise), any judge would simply ask the question what was meant by "assign my copyright". And it's very obvious that the owner wanted to give the Werknutzungsrecht (in Austria, Nutzungsrecht in Germany) to the recipient. And that's an unlimited exclusive license that effectively transfers all rights.
The only right one really cannot transfer is the right to claim authorship. So you may still say that you have written the thing, but you may not even use it without permission of the new rights holder.
IANAL myself, so really, ask a lawyer :)
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 19:58 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
Down here (Brasil), our Author's Rights Law says that an author or its successors can transfer all rights given by the same law, except the moral rights (basically assignment, like the right to have your name cited when your work is cited and the right to have your name excluded when the execution of your work modifies it, among others).
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 23:09 UTC (Tue) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
OK if you look at it that way it makes sense but I'd rather spell out what is meant in a contract rather then hopping that a judge gets the intent right ;)
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 29, 2013 22:15 UTC (Fri) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
I don't think the owner of the exploitation rights can prevent you from using it personally: even if your author's rights won't allow it (which I doubt), you have a "legally obtained" copy already, and "fair use" allows you to use it.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 19, 2013 22:53 UTC (Tue) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
Yes and no. There are actually two rights: "Urheberrecht", which basically is only the right to be attributed, and "Nutzungsrecht", usage right, which covers everything else. To confuse things, both are lumped into a corpus of law generally called "Urheberrecht".
The first one can't be transferred. At all. Not even with heritage, since you can't claim you wrote it, when your father wrote it.
However, the whole discussion (and all the controversies) are about the second one, the usage rights.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 20, 2013 0:29 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
There is similar and very common confusion in French: "Copyright" is almost always translated to "droit d'auteur" but this translation is inaccurate.
Just like pretty much everywhere else there are two quite distinct types of "droits d'auteur": the "droit moral" on one hand and the "droit patrimonial" (basically: usage/economic rights) on the other hand. The former is indeed inalienable and perpetual but the "right to copy" is only relevant to the latter.
Unlike German ones, French speakers don't have the excuse of confusing names yet most people only ever heard about the very general "droit(s) d'auteur".
While there seems to be some minor differences all this is surprisingly consistent across the world; probably thanks to the Berne convention.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 20, 2013 0:46 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
Chuckling to myself that if it is "droit moral" on the one hand, then maybe it should be "gauche patrimonial" on the other ... abusing language is so much fun.
When does the FSF own your code? Posted Mar 20, 2013 8:50 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Not everywhere that has moral rights legislation has the "droit de retrait et de repentir", though.
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