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Re: [ox-en] Re: Keyword: Free Software Licences



ok, got it, it's not a contract, but a license you
have to agree to use,



Michel


--- João Miguel Neves <joao silvaneves.org> wrote:

Sáb, 2007-04-28 às 07:02 -0700, Michael Bauwens
escreveu:
Keyword: Free Software Licences
===============================

* Licenses are contracts

Just the usual note: Licenses aren't contracts:

1) You don't have to agree to them.

That's exactly what defines a contract

I'm sorry, but unless someone turned the definition
of contract
completely around, you are wrong. A contract is an
agreement between two
or more parties. If you don't have to agree with it,
then it's not an
agreement.

You can find several definitions on the web for
contract. I don't know
in which country you are, but you'll easily find one
for your country.


2) The restrictions are imposed by copyright
law.

3) The license can not impose restrictions not
in
the law. It can only
reduce the restrictions as defined by the law.

Yes, it can impose restrictions not in copyright
law,
that's exactly what a contract is about, and what
the
GPL and CC licenses are about, to create
restrictions
on the private appropriation of the common

1) A license can't impose restrictions not on
copyright law.

2) You don't need a contract to impose limitations
on reproduction of a
work - copyright law and international treaties do
it: check article 9
of the Berne Convention, for an example:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html
(the
authorization refered to is a right of the author,
there's no need for
an agreement with anyone else)

3) For imposing restrictions other than those of
copyright law, you need
a contract. And for a contract to be legally
binding, whoever is bound
by it, must agree to it (you can't been drawn into a
contract you have
not agreed to).

4) GPL and CC are licenses that explicitely exercise
the rights of
authorization given by copyright laws in a way that
remove the
limitations provided by the default behavior of
copyright law.

"The essence of copyright law, like other systems of
property rules, is
the power to exclude. The copyright holder is
legally empowered to
exclude all others from copying, distributing, and
making derivative
works.

This right to exclude implies an equally large power
to license--that
is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise
be forbidden.
Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is
obliged to remain within
the bounds of the license not because she
voluntarily promised, but
because she doesn't have any right to act at all
except as the license
permits." - Eben Moglen (one of the creators of the
GPLv2) in Enforcing
the GPL -

http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html

http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-13.html

I hope this has cleared up the terms.

Best regards,
						João Miguel Neves

PS: In case it still isn't clear the part doing the
"appropriation of
the common" by default is the copyright law, not the
licenses.



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