Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:41:00 +0100 From: Luigi Rizzo <rizzo@iet.unipi.it> To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: does Copyright on source files expire ? Message-ID: <20090325094100.GA915@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> In-Reply-To: <20090325093152.GB85469@zim.MIT.EDU> References: <20090325084722.GC98685@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> <20090325093152.GB85469@zim.MIT.EDU>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 05:31:52AM -0400, David Schultz wrote: > On Wed, Mar 25, 2009, Luigi Rizzo wrote: > > Someone just asked me permission to move to a 3-clause BSD > > copyright some piece of software that I haven't touched in 10+ years. > > > > I said yes, but then I was wondering what happens if the > > person listed is not responding or not reachable anymore: > > does copyright on source code expire, and if so, when ? > > (I suppose it is related to either the date listed on the copyright, > > or to the date of some remarkable event for the author). > > In the US, the rule that applies most of the time is that > Copyright expires 70 years after the author dies, although there > are many special cases where the term differs. > > A person's Copyright doesn't go away just because they die, > disappear, or fail to respond. If you can't contact them, their > heirs, or whomever they transferred the Copyright to, you're stuck. so it's worse than a patent :) cheers luigi
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20090325094100.GA915>