# Copyright Law



## Phishfry (Aug 7, 2016)

I find this topic interesting:
https://boingboing.net/2016/08/05/monkey-selfie-case-headed.html

A monkey can't  have a copyright but a company can.


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## fossette (Aug 7, 2016)

Imo, in the camera owner's defense, it is the responsibility of the monkey to fight for the copyright's right, and Peta must prove beyond reasonable doubt that this is the monkey's wishes.  Who knows?  Maybe the monkey meant this to be public domain.  He doesn't seem to be the Human Capitalist kind anyway.  

PS: Imo, the camera owner doesn't own the copyright either.

Dominique.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 7, 2016)

To me it is more just irritating. The ones bringing the suit are really just trolling. What do they hope to achieve? For one thing, they seem to be arguing that the monkey would have knowledge of international markets (or any markets) for photographs when they claim the actions by the monkey were "purposeful" in this case. There are many cases where the ownership could be disputed and to me the only solution is to consider the one who willed the result to be the owner. However, in a case like this would the manufacturer of the camera be the copyright owner since they're the ones that wrote the algorithm for the exposure, focus, and other aspects of what you get when you press the button? If it was me doing the trolling, that's what I would argue. 



Phishfry said:


> A monkey can't have a copyright but a company can.


If a company can have a copyright, then any entity should perhaps be able to. Personally I don't think that a company should be allowed copyright since a company obviously can't create anything, it would take a person to do so.


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## Phishfry (Aug 8, 2016)

I think this just goes to show how contorted copyright law is.
It was originally meant to protect authors writings and was expanded into maps and charts. Some time later with photographs.

PETA likes controversy. Generally they mean well.


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## sidetone (Aug 8, 2016)

I think the person who created it, should have at least half or even 1/4 of the copyright, even if they did it under employment.


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 8, 2016)

It is just a matter of *Legal Personality. *So, corporations and people have but monkeys not. At same time if we talk about *International Legal Personality*, Countries and International Organizations have, but people and corporations not.

Just to notice, *International Organizations* in *International Law* are just the ones formed exclusively by Countries and others International Organizations, they (IOs) also should fill several others requirements I cannot remember right now but to exemplify, the "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development" (aka The World Bank) is a international organization while the "Inter-American Development Bank" is not.

In others words, people and corporations cannot bring actions to international courts, or should be represented by some country/IO. Currently there are a few exceptions on human rights side.

PS. the correct name for international corporations and NGOs are transnational corporations/NGOs.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 8, 2016)

sidetone said:


> I think the person who created it, should have at least half or even 1/4 of the copyright, even if they did it under employment.



The person who created it should get all of it.  That's the difference between European and US copyright law. Here is a relevant quote:


> Two major differences b/w US & EU Copyright law relate to (i) Moral Rights, and (ii) Fair use.
> Moral rights are the rights of the author to control the integrity of his/her work, and to claim attribution. EU recognizes moral rights, and makes them non-transferable, i.e. the author can control his/her work even after assigning it to someone. Also, in EU, moral rights cannot be waived. US recognizes moral rights to a much lesser extent, makes is transferable, and also capable of being waived.


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## sidetone (Aug 8, 2016)

Some people got cheated of their work, for instance, Walt Disney, and possibly Tesla.

I would be ok with dual ownership, the author always retaining enough to get credit/royalties if applicable. OJ, what do you think of derivative works? One author makes something, then gives someone else permission to make a derivative? In the derivative do you think they should they both get rights to it?

Then there's a complication of, if an employee of NASA or a spacecraft takes a picture, that the copyright belongs to the public, as opposed to (IDK if this applies to what you said) a picture with the ESA belongs to the person who took the picture. There is also a subject we are familiar with, opensource, whether its MIT, BSD, Apache or GPL, as in if, a small contributor, retains all rights, how can they not revoke it from opensource?


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## Murph (Aug 8, 2016)

sidetone said:


> There is also a subject we are familiar with, opensource, whether its MIT, BSD, Apache or GPL, as in if, a small contributor, retains all rights, how can they not revoke it from opensource?



A copyright holder cannot revoke a license that they knowingly and willingly granted, except in cases of non-compliance with the license and where the terms of the license allows for termination.  If you grant an open source license, you generally can't undo that; although the copyright owner is free to grant alternative licenses, such as cases where some source is available under both an open license and the owner separately sells closed licenses.

I.e. you grant me a license, I agree to the license and comply with its terms.  If you later tell me you are cancelling the license (without cause), I really will tell you to sue me (or possibly something a little more colourful), and continue to exercise my rights under the original license (including sub-licensing if the original terms permit that, as is the general case for open source).  I will only agree to termination of the original license if you offer more beneficial terms in a new license to replace it.  You would suffer a costly loss by trying to forcefully cancel the license without cause.  In the case of open source, it does not have to be written and signed to form a binding contract, as contract law recognises "tacit acceptance"; i.e. a contract is formed without the parties ever having met or communicated.

"All rights reserved", which I would always strongly encourage, means all rights which are not otherwise subject to a binding agreement.  The offer and acceptance of a valid license, combined with compliance with the terms of the license, is a binding contract which cannot be unilaterally terminated by the copyright holder (absent a term allowing that).  You first reserve your rights, then you grant specific rights to others under specified terms.


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## sidetone (Aug 8, 2016)

Murph

I was asking about EU copyright, since OJ said it was non-transferable and doesn't allow waiving ownership.



			
				OJ said:
			
		

> Two major differences b/w US & EU Copyright law relate to (i) Moral Rights, and (ii) Fair use.
> Moral rights are the rights of the author to control the integrity of his/her work, and to claim attribution. EU recognizes moral rights, and makes them non-transferable, i.e. the author can control his/her work even after assigning it to someone. Also, in EU, moral rights cannot be waived. US recognizes moral rights to a much lesser extent, makes is transferable, and also capable of being waived.



Tesla and Disney lost ownership of their work, and would have been protected under EU copyright, if they could prove it. ESA as opposed to NASA, I'm guessing uses that copyright rule, because it always belongs to who took the pictures, not the space agency or public domain.

How would opensource be conducted under EU copyright law, if they wanted to revoke a contribution, no matter how minor?


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## Murph (Aug 8, 2016)

sidetone said:


> How would opensource be conducted under EU copyright law, if they wanted to revoke a contribution, no matter how minor?



Open source is routinely handled under all of the world's copyright laws.  When a contributor puts something into an open source project, they are implicitly granting a license to use their work under the project's primary license(s).  At that point, a legal contract is formed between the copyright owner and the project (or the company / person who has overall control of the project, if the project does not have its own legal identity), usually granting the project a perpetual and irrevocable license to use the work under the terms of the license.

Open source works just fine both with and without transfer of ownership of the copyright.  People in the EU routinely contribute to projects based in the US, and vice versa.  The usual open source licenses are valid and enforceable in both the EU and the US.  The key thing is that the open source licenses generally grant the rights of redistribution and sub-licensing, so it really does not matter who actually owns the copyright.  Copyright ownership usually only becomes important when it comes to litigation, as only the owner (and their appointed agents) can properly participate in litigation; but there is also the copyright of the combined work/collection which can empower the project with its own standing in litigation.  The ownership is not important for the day to day licensing, as long as the owner granted the license in the first place.

The bottom line is that in both the EU and US you cannot generally undo a grant of an open source license, and attempting to do so exposes you to liability.  You freely choose to license your work under the terms of the license.  Once people accept your offer of a license, a binding contract is formed which you can't undo without cause.


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## sidetone (Aug 8, 2016)

I see a possible loophole around EU copyright.

There's a lot from creative commons, GPL, and other sources that say a company can create certain opensource projects, then revoke it, apart from a dual licensed agreement. If someone contributes, but doesn't own the GPL or CC copyright, then the company revokes it, it seems that would conflict with EU copyright.


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## Murph (Aug 8, 2016)

A company absolutely cannot "revoke" CC or GPL licenses without cause, i.e. only if you do not comply with license terms and a term of the license provides for termination in the specific circumstances.  The only thing they can do is choose not to release future versions under the same license terms, but only if they are the sole controller of copyright (or have agreement from all copyright holders).  Oracle are a prominent example who have put great effort into their customer alienation program, by restrictively changing license terms on future versions; but they are unable to do anything about the licenses already granted for previous versions (and can't prevent people continuing to use and distribute those versions forever, other than through their obnoxious litigation policies).

There is no such thing as "GPL or CC copyright", only copyright itself.  GPL and CC are licenses to use copyrighted material, and can only be initially granted by the copyright holder and their appointed agents.  Someone cannot contribute code which is not their own under an alternate license; e.g. FreeBSD imports various non-BSD license code, but those portions of the project can't be published under a BSD license without permission of the copyright holders; and GPL code can't be freely used anywhere inside FreeBSD source, only as clearly separated components.

In the case of a commercially controlled open source project, the controlling company can have a "contributor agreement" in place (this is also a contract), which basically grants them the right to re-license the contributions under any terms of their choosing.  There is still not any revocation of existing licenses without cause, only a potential change of license for future versions.  Again, there is no conflict, as the person freely chose to contribute under specific terms and they agreed to any future re-licensing terms.  If a person contributes code which is not their own in such circumstances, they are in breach of contract (both with the project they are contributing to, and the real copyright holder).  Such projects can basically only accept contributions directly from the person who holds the copyright for the contribution.

Additional licenses can be offered for past versions, or terms can be relaxed (e.g. UCB's deletion of clause 3), with approval of all copyright holders, but that is the only retrospective change possible under most open source licenses.


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## ANOKNUSA (Aug 9, 2016)

Phishfry said:


> A monkey can't have a copyright but a company can.



Because monkeys don't produce a damn thing worth copyrighting and are incapable of benefiting from copyrights. This  topic was stupid years ago, and it's stupid now.


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