Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261902AbVDKTrU (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:47:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261904AbVDKTrT (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:47:19 -0400 Received: from sanosuke.troilus.org ([66.92.173.88]:61114 "EHLO sanosuke.troilus.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261902AbVDKTq5 (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:46:57 -0400 To: , Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. From: Michael Poole Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:46:53 -0400 In-Reply-To: (David Schwartz's message of "Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:31:53 -0700") Message-ID: <87oecldrki.fsf@sanosuke.troilus.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) References: 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: 1711 Lines: 35 David Schwartz writes: >>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. > > This would, of course, only make sense if you *had* to agree to the license > to *create* the derivative work. If you were able to create the derivative > work under first sale or fair use rights, then the restrictions in the > contract would not apply to you. This would, of course, only make sense if fair use or first sale rights *allow* the creation of derivative works. I have seen nothing in this thread or in the statutes to suggest that they do. Do not forget that your copyright interest in a derivative work is limited to the creative elements which you contributed. Simply having a license (or right) to create a derivative work does not permit you to infringe the original work's copyright, which still subsists in the derivative work insofar as the derivative work contains copyrightable elements from the original work. Even if some court agrees with your hypothesis that the compiled program is a derivative work of the source (which I doubt would happen), and you find some permission outside of the GPL to prepare that derivative work, you still need permission to copy it further. 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/