Can you alter the MIT license? (1)

[Angelo Schneider]

Hi Bruce!
Hi all!

Problem in this thread is that most people seem not to realize that
copyright is only a smal part out of a set of rights which belong
to a more comprehencive right.

see below!

Best Regards,
	Angelo

Bruce Perens wrote:
> 
> From: Jules Bean <jmlb2 at hermes.cam.ac.uk>
> > Even public domain isn't your copyright [um.. unless you wrote it, of
> > course].
> 
> You're a bit confused about public domain. Please read this entire message
> carefully.

Sorry Bruce, you are wrong.
The former author, your replay applies to, is (more) right.

> 
> Placing a work in the public domain is not the same as granting broad
> rights to that work. If you place on your work the notice "I place
> this work in the public domain", you abandon your copyright rights

Nope, you cant abondon your "copyrights".
Clarification:
The mother of those rights which are often called "copyright" is a right
which is called (translated from german) "creators rights".

The creator of a given subject has "rights of an author".

This is called (translated from german) a natural law. Or a divine
law. This can't be removed, given up or even transfered.

> entirely. You literally no longer have a copyright on that work at
> all. That is different than saying "Copyright 1999 Bruce Perens, Do
> anything you want as long as you preserve my copyright notice." For example,
> someone can create a derived work of public-domain material and copyright it,

To some extend, yes.

> and can place any license terms they wish on it, and need not attribute the
> work to you!

Yes, the original stuff is still available as the original stuff.
But this would not be true for a picture for e.g.

Propably some one could clarify the term "public domain". Especialy
in contrast to copyright. I do not believe that a work which is put
into pd dos not have a copyright. I'm of the impression that the author
of a pd work grants everybody to copy and to ditribute his work.

Thats something different.

> 
> Claiming for a business advantage, to be the author of a public-domain work
> may be fraud. That's criminal law, however, not copyright law. Copyright
> law does not require you to put proper author attribution on public-domain
> work.
> 
> > Copyrights can be explicitly assigned to others, bought and sold as
> > commodities.  But they can't be given up entirely...

Thats right! Better if you reference "creators rights" here, than it's
true: they can't be given up. They belong to you like your DNS,
a lawyer once telled me it sticks to you like your name, even if you
change your name, your old schoole mates will know you.
Like that you will always be known as "the creator" of the specific work
(at least to some god). This action of creation can never be reversed
or made undone. And this action grants you some rights, one of this
rights
is the right to copy and distribute (the so called copyright).

> 
> OK, you dared me.
> 
>         I abandon my copyright rights on this message and place it in the
>         public domain. Bruce Perens, 15-November-1999.
> 
> It's entirely my right to do that.
> 

Yes it's your right to do that, but this action would be void if 
you would mean "creators rights"!
If you see "the copyright" as a part of the creators/authors rights
about his crafted work, you can public give up to enforce that right.

Or you can public grant that right to the community (->public domain).

> > 'Public domain', literally, applies to something upon which there is no
> > copyright at all.  This would be something which has no attributable

There does nothing exist build by man which has no copyright (except the
exceptions in the law, but this is not a principal difference) and
bears some originality.

> > author, or more likely a long-dead author (copyright thus expired).
> 
> Or the copyright owner has intentionaly placed the work in the public domain.
> 
> > In particular, the GPL says that you must make available the source of the
> > whole work.  Now this is an additional restriction on top the the MIT one,
> > but it's not in conflict with the MIT one - it doesn't ask you to do
> > anything you aren't allowed to do.
> 
> Right.
> 
> > Current popular interpretation is that you can't, if your software is
> > 'BSD-with-advertising-clause'.  If you don't have the adv-clause, or
> > you're happy to give it up, then you can GPL parts of your software, and
> > include other peoples GPL'ed software.  But you must satisfy the terms of
> > the GPL (which you are not likely to find a problem).
> 
> Note also that you can issue _any_number_of_licenses_ on software as long
> as you own its copyright. Want to put the same work under GPL, BSD, X11,
> Artistic, MPL, and so on? Do all at once. Producers of derived works and users
> get to pick a license, they can't mix and match terms from more than one.
> 
>         Thanks
> 
>         Bruce

Regards,
	Angelo

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