discuss: EIN advantages (was" LDP can't get non-profit status ...)
Subject:
Re: [discuss] EIN advantages (was" LDP can't get non-profit status ...)
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
20 Apr 2007 20:00:05 -0000
Message-Id: <20070420200011.GA5236@davespc>
On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 08:45:20AM -0500, Bradley Hook wrote:
> David Lawyer wrote:
>
> >Mostly true but the point is that if LDP were incorporated, SCO could
> >only sue and hold responsible those people guilty of misconduct and
> >not sue every member. Absent laws to the contrary, it's sometimes
> >alleged that every member of an unincorporated organization is
> >responsible for acts of the organization, even if they were not
> >participants in such acts. Fortunately, many states (California and
> >Texas definitely do) have such laws protecting members of
> >unincorporated nonprofit associations from such vicarious liability.
>
> Isn't copyright a federal law applicable in a federal (not state) court?
Yes, but I think that federal courts go by applicable state law.
The case for this would be stronger if the unincorporated association
were registered the that state.
In California, one can register an "Unincorporated Nonprofit
Association" with the State Government. A number of people registered
their gay marriage that way, but it's pretty meaningless. There is
no checking to determine if you really are non-profit. The law for
registration is under the heading "Insignia"; and one also describes
the organization's insignia and registers that too. It seems that
it's mainly for use by fraternal clubs, although LDP could use it too.
Laws prohibit wearing the insignia if you are not a member.
> >LDP just doesn't have the resources to try to determine if a
> document >is plagiarism. But I did find some plagiarism in a howto
> by Al Dev >and for this and other reasons we removed all his HOWTOs
> for review >I don't think we've every found time to review them.
> They were >all pretty bad. So if someone points out plagiarism to
> us, it's our >legal responsibility to remove it.
>
> This I can mostly understand. However, if LDP is concerned about
> future litigation, then it is my opinion that a solution should be
> sought that prevents liability rather than redirects it. For
> example, the Linux kernel now has a method of tracking who
> contributes what, and what chain of people it goes through to make
> it into the kernel. While this doesn't effectively eliminate the
> possibility of illegally copied code, it does show a good faith
> effort of trying to ensure only legitimate code is incorporated into
> the kernel.
Well, since authors put their name on their work, there isn't much
need for such a tracking system.
David Lawyer
