Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:15:30 -0500 | Subject | Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux | From | (Lennart Sorensen) |
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On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:54:35PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > The GPL might only talk about distribution. > > But copyright law is not restricted to copying of work. > > IANAL, and I don't know abou the laws in other countries, but at least > in Germany modifications of a copyrighted work require the permission of > the copyright holder. > > It's e.g. a not so uncommon problem that someone wants to modify a 30 or > 80 years old building, and since the original contract with the > architect did not grant the owner of the building the rights to modify > it he needs to ask the architect (or the architect's heirs) who has the > (nontransferable) copyright on the building for the permission to modify > the building. [1]
Germany does seem to be an odd case that really makes it very difficult to do perfectly reasonable, desirable and sane things. I am not even sure the GPL necesarily makes sense under German copyright law. I am not German so I haven't had to deal with it.
-- Len Sorensen
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