Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261686AbVDKNgg (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:36:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261747AbVDKNgg (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:36:36 -0400 Received: from sanosuke.troilus.org ([66.92.173.88]:58547 "EHLO sanosuke.troilus.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261686AbVDKNgd (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:36:33 -0400 To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. From: Michael Poole Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:36:31 -0400 In-Reply-To: <425A655D.1010201@almg.gov.br> (Humberto Massa's message of "Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:54:05 -0300") Message-ID: <87vf6te8ps.fsf@sanosuke.troilus.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) References: <425A655D.1010201@almg.gov.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1663 Lines: 39 Humberto Massa writes: > David Schwartz wrote: > >> > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 08:07:03PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: >> >> >> >> The way you stop someone from distributing part of your work is >> >> by arguing that the work they are distributing is a derivative >> >> work of your work and they had no right to *make* it in the first >> >> place. See, for example, Mulcahy v. Cheetah Learning. >> >> >> > Er, that's one way, but not *the* way. I could grant you >> > permission to create derivatives of my work, but not to >> > redistribute them. To stop you from distributing them, I'd argue >> > that you had no right to distribute them--you *did* have the right >> > to make it in the first place. >> >> >> You could do that be means of a contract, but I don't think you could >> it do by means of a copyright license. The problem is that there is >> no right to control the distribution of derivative works for you to >> withhold from me. > Wrong, sorry. Copyright is a *monopoly* on some activities (copy, > distribution of copies, making *and* distribution of derivative works). Copyright law only _explicitly_ grants a monopoly on preparation of derivative works. However, it is trivial, and overwhelmingly common, for a copyright owner to grant a license to create a derivative work that is conditional on how the licensee agrees to distribute (or not distribute) the derivative work. Michael Poole - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/