Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. | From | Michael Poole <> | Date | Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:36:31 -0400 |
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Humberto Massa writes:
> David Schwartz wrote: > >> > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 08:07:03PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: >> >> >> >> The way you stop someone from distributing part of your work is >> >> by arguing that the work they are distributing is a derivative >> >> work of your work and they had no right to *make* it in the first >> >> place. See, for example, Mulcahy v. Cheetah Learning. >> >> >> > Er, that's one way, but not *the* way. I could grant you >> > permission to create derivatives of my work, but not to >> > redistribute them. To stop you from distributing them, I'd argue >> > that you had no right to distribute them--you *did* have the right >> > to make it in the first place. >> >> >> You could do that be means of a contract, but I don't think you could >> it do by means of a copyright license. The problem is that there is >> no right to control the distribution of derivative works for you to >> withhold from me. > Wrong, sorry. Copyright is a *monopoly* on some activities (copy, > distribution of copies, making *and* distribution of derivative works).
Copyright law only _explicitly_ grants a monopoly on preparation of derivative works. However, it is trivial, and overwhelmingly common, for a copyright owner to grant a license to create a derivative work that is conditional on how the licensee agrees to distribute (or not distribute) the derivative work.
Michael Poole - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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