discuss: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
Subject:
Re: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
From:
Edward Cherlin ####@####.####
Date:
17 Jun 2005 16:52:57 -0000
Message-Id: <200506170954.01404.edward.cherlin@etssg.com>
On Friday 17 June 2005 00:01, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Edward Cherlin ####@####.####
> > It is perfectly within the rights of TLDP, as publisher, to
> > offer a contract or license that says that nobody can change
> > _this version_ of a document, but that the community is
> > entirely free to use anything in it in creating a new
> > version, clearly identified as such, when needed.
>
> Edward, two problems:
>
> 1. LDP has no legal existence as a "person". This would
> require re-forming as a corporation or some other legal
> entity.
Well, then, I withdraw the part about a contract. It's back to
the license. We can write a license, and if we agree on it,
require that authors use it, or any other that we approve, in
order to get their work published on our server.
> 2. Even if it did, unlike the sort of "publisher" you
> envision,
Actually not. I am envisioning a publisher consisting of an
informal group of like-minded people with control of a server,
not a conventional publisher acting as an IP owner or licensee
and trying to control the use of printed publications.
> LDP doesn't gain copyright title under contract,
Copyright title is almost irrelevant in publishing. Somebody has
to have it, but it hardly matters who as long as the parties
agree on their rights as enumerated in contracts and licenses.
We are discussing a license that the author can use, so no issue
of LDP ownership arises.
> and
> so would have no standing to enforce document licence terms.
How do we manage our document licenses today? Who enforces them?
How?
Are there any substantive objections to my idea? We can put
documents out saying that they may not be modified without
permission of the author, EXCEPT that the author grants LDP
permission to use the content to create further versions under
the same kind of license. Then the author of the new version has
control of the new material in that version.
The idea is for authors to give LDP the essential permission to
make new versions in advance, so that we don't have the issue of
how diligently to track down authors of abandoned documents, and
we can't be stymied in creating new versions by an intransigent
author.
Perhaps some authors would be content if the license said no
changes without LDP permission. Can we ask whoever brought up
the original idea?
--
Edward Cherlin, Simputer Evangelist
Encore Technologies (S) Pte. Ltd.
The Village Information Society
http://cherlin.blogspot.com
