On Monday 25 March 2002 18:37, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Monday 25 March 2002 18.30, James Mohr wrote:
I have a Thin Lizzy songbook that I bought in London about 15 years ago that says the compilation is copyrighted.
Are the individual songs in the public domain? Is it the layout/editing that has been copyrighted or the table of contents? Copyright law is a very tricky subject. You can't just look at a copyright in a book and deduce which aspects of the work are copyrighted. You can't even assume the copyright will stand up in court (in your example you said Prentice Hall had a banner that forbad the copying of "the software" which they were clearly not entitled to do, since "the software" was under the GPL)
//Anders
The individual songs are not in the public domain, but the collection was, and was probably not limited to simply the page with the table of contents. I would **imagine** that no one could create a book that had exactly these same songs. One different song and it is a different collection. In the case of my book, PH could not prevent you from copying the individual software packages as that would violate the GPL. However, they **could** prevent you from copying the entire CD. There were things on the CD that I created as part of the book. If the term "software" is used to describe the *collection* of bytes on the CD, then PH could probably get away with preventing you, or at least take legal action if you simply made a 1:1 copy of the CD. There were/are things on the CD that were not covered by the GPL (unfortunately), so PH or any other publisher **could** say you are in violation of the copyright for that specific material by making a 1:1 copy. The same **could** apply to SuSE or any other distro. Even if the terminology is not clear on the package and you copy material that does not fall within the GPL, that could make you criminally liable. Granted, you cannot "deduce which aspects of the work are copyrighted". However, you **should** assume that the "copyright will stand up in court" unless you can prove otherwise. If someone had made a copy of the CD in my book, despite the fact that there was GPL software on it, you would/could be in violation of New York State copyright laws. Whether they apply in the UK, Germany, Mongolia or Elbonia is a different matter. OK, assume that PH or SuSE or any other company that makes a CD with the word "Linux" on it has **no** rights to that CD and copy it to your heart's content. Just don't be surprised when you end up in court because of a 500 byte text file that the vendor has a copyright on and you are not legally allowed to copy. Few of us on this list are competent enough to say whether we can copy every CD within our own country, let alone in other countries. The attitude I take with this is the same as the way I administer my systems as work: the path of least danger. In this case, I don't assume that I can copy the CD, just because "Linux" is written on it. Regards, jimmo -- --------------------------------------- "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others thing you are." -- John Wooden --------------------------------------- Be sure to visit the Linux Tutorial: http://www.linux-tutorial.info --------------------------------------- NOTE: All messages sent to me in response to my posts to newsgroups or forums are subject to reposting.