Assembling the history of Unix - copyright

Posted Jun 16, 2017 21:27 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
Parent article: Assembling the history of Unix

The copyright owners of Unix are being surprisingly stingy. The article claims they granted permission to distribute ancient Unix, but the linked instrument from then (http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2017-March/009354.html) does not actually do that. It says they "agree not to assert" their rights. That's not a copyright license; it's half of a contract. And because the other half of the contract, where someone gives the copyright owners something in consideration of that promise, is missing, it has no legal weight.

Why wouldn't they just contribute this code to the public domain (with words like "contribute to the public domain") or maximally license it (with words like "grant permission to everyone to copy, etc. this code") or even waive copyright (with words like, "hereby waive their rights under copyright")? The code can't be worth anything other than for generating goodwill with such a gift.

Assembling the history of Unix - copyright

Posted Jun 19, 2017 3:05 UTC (Mon) by fratti (guest, #105722) [Link] (2 responses)

One guess that assumes they know what they're doing: Defensive IP hoarding, possibly. They can threaten anyone who plans to sue them for intellectual property violations that they in turn must be violating some ancient copyright or patent they have somewhere, and as with all IP matters, only a lengthy court battle would answer the question as to whether the claim is valid.

Another guess that does not assume they know what they're doing: This was the legal department who has no real grasp on the actual value (excluding historic value) of the code, so they're being stingy because it's their job to be stingy.

Assembling the history of Unix - copyright

Posted Jun 24, 2017 13:38 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

Another guess (and this, sadly, is the fate of Pr1mos). They think they are the copyright holders but they don't know for certain ...

Certainly as far as Pr1mos is concerned we know the copyright is held by one of two companies. Neither will sell their rights to the other because the one selling wants a lot of money for what the other considers not worth very much (this argument goes both ways :-(

And because nobody knows for certain who owns the copyright, nobody will do anything that could be a breach of copyright. (Both companies definitely hold a licence that gives them copyright-owner-like status, so keeping ancient copies maintained and working isn't a problem...)

Cheers,
Wol

Assembling the history of Unix - copyright

Posted Jun 24, 2017 19:40 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

I don't think not being sure they have copyright is a likely explanation for this company promising not to assert copyright instead of actually licensing the code or waiving copyright. I'm sure their lawyers know they can avoid any risk of not actually having copyright just by adding a few words. "To the extent we have copyright ..." "We waive whatever copyright we might have ..." "We make no warranty that we have copyright ..." In fact, such words are in that promise not to assert.

By the way, I'd like to correct what I said about this promise not being enforceable for lack of consideration (i.e. nobody is giving the copyright owner anything for it). I forgot about promissory estoppel. If someone detrimentally relies on a clear promise, the promise is enforceable even without consideration, and that would certainly be the case if Tooney distributes Unix, thereby violating copyright, because he knew of this promise not to assert copyright.