Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 14:27:21 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Christian Walther" <cptsalek@gmail.com>, <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Fix this: The Regents of the University of California. Allrights reserved. Message-ID: <BMEDLGAENEKCJFGODFOCAEBLCAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <14989d6e0705270319r68b9c4e2y5f32141f53c5472a@mail.gmail.com>
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> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Christian > Walther > Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 3:20 AM > To: questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Fix this: The Regents of the University of California. > Allrights reserved. > > > On 27/05/07, Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.uu.se> wrote: > > On Sun, May 27, 2007 at 02:38:33AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > As I understand it the phrase 'All rights reserved' was > required by older > > copyright rules but is obsolete these days. > > I.e. changing the wording so that 'All rights reserved' applies to both > > copyright statements is pointless since it does not have any legal > > significance any more. > > Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "(C) - All rights reserved" > something entirely different from the BSD License under which FreeBSD > is licensed? This license grants it's users some rights very > explicitely. I know that I can still be a Copyright owner when I > choose to distribute a piece of work under a different license, but > can I say that all rights are reserved when I actually do something > else? Unfortunately, WPTO did not create a new category of copyright with software, they tried stuffing it into the same existing copyright framework that covers books, periodicals, etc. Thus stuff like first rights to publish, which have significance with copyrighted written materials, are meaningless with software. And, things like patents, ie: software patents, which have meaning with copyrighted software, are meaningless with books and articles. With FreeBSD, the decision to make software subject to copyright laws means that when you want to give software away you have to find a convenient entity to give the software copyright ownership. So what was historically done with BSD software is when someone wrote a piece of it they would sign over copyright rights to UCB which would immediately license the stuff under a license that basically revoked all rights that a normal copyright owner would have. The same thing is done these days with the FreeBSD Project. It is a shame that in the beginning the Copyright people didn't recognize at once that software is nothing more than a device, and basically state that like all devices, it could be patented but not copyrighted. The failure of copyright to be able to properly deal with software has given rise to a lot of bad side effects, such as software patents (where the person is basically trying to have their cake and eat it too - benefiting both from copyright and patent on the same piece of software) and laws like the DMCA which classify software and explicitly categorize it as a device, so they can ban it. (The US Constitution explicitly forbids banning of materials like books and articles that carry copyright) Ted
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