Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Tue, 5 Sep 2000 10:23:44 +0200 (MEST) | From | Hannah Schroeter <> | Subject | Re: [ANNOUNCE] Withdrawl of Open Source NDS Project/NTFS/M2FS forLinux |
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Hello!
In article <8ovlia$nq2$1@babsi.tanstaafl.de> you write: >[...]
>There are even countries (like Germany) where you CAN'T give up your >copyright and put things into public domain. There is no such thing as >public domain here. You _always_ keep a certain copyright until >someone else assumes responsibility.
IIRC you can't even *transfer* the full copyrights in Germany. The copyrights in Germany are divided into two parts: - "Urheberpersönlichkeitsrecht" (personality rights like the ability to require naming of the author, but also protection from abusive modification of the work [!! "entstellende Veränderungen"], which means you can technically not even give away the right for *arbitrary* changes beforehand, you can only choose not to *use* the right to forbid "abusive" changes!) They can't be transferred nor given up. Maybe they are inherited on death of the author, and they cease 70 years after the death of the author - "Nutzungsrechte" (usage rights) The rights to use, copy, distribute, ... the work They can be licensed, sublicensed, exclusively licensed (which amounts to a transfer of those rights), but everything subject to the limitations of the Urheberpersönlichkeitsrecht.
So, technically, you can NOT even transfer the copyright for e.g. gcc contributions to the FSF, such a transfer is void at least with respect to the Urheberpersönlichkeitsrecht. I suppose, courts would value such a transfer (or attempt thereof) as exclusive license for the Nutzungsrechte instead.
However, IANAL.
>[...]
Regards, Hannah. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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