Real-World Copyright Assignment

[Ned Lilly]

Greg Herlein wrote:

> However, I'm very interested in the actual real-world
> implementation of this. What kind of language do you use in the
> copyright assignement agreement?  Is there a template that cn be
> copied by others?  Do you require hard copy signed and
> snail-mailed to consider it legal?  Do you apply this to all
> contributions?  Obviously a major feature implmentation would
> need it, but what about a three line patch?  Where is the cutoff
> from a practical consideration?

One project I was involved with was considering working some sort of one-time
"click to agree to the provisions of the license" into the CVS or patch manager.
That would cover assignment of copyright as well as indemnification of the
developers.  Since things like CVS are individual account-driven, the attorneys
felt that an one-time (and for all future submissions) electronic agreement would
suffice, since you could have the record of the individual developer's agreement.

Is anyone familiar with something like this actually being put into practice?

> As to contributing back profits from the effort to the original
> contributors, how do you calculate the share?  How can you track that?

Ugh, I don't think you can.  Fool's errand, IMHO.  If you submit code to a
project, you don't do it in expectation of future profits directly from the
code.  Likely unworkable and unenforcable.

> I'm also interested in what constitutes "distribution" - if someone
> takes GPL code and embeds it into a network appliance and sells that
> product as a black box and the user never even knows what happens
> under the hood, is that considered "distribution?"  How can a
> develper enforce it if they want to license the code so that "if
> you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is
> commercial?"

Anyone from TiVo on this list?  That's their situation with the Linux kernel
exactly.  See http://www.tivo.com/linux/

Regards,
Ned