[License-discuss] Looking for a license agreement.

[John Cowan]

Rudy Lippan scripsit:

> There may not be intellectual property in the components; however,
> there is work involved in their creation.

That doesn't matter to the law.  It takes a lot of work to alphabetize
a list of millions of names, but the result is not in copyright in the
U.S.; it is in the public domain.

> I give you free use of a copy machine, but state that as a condition
> of use, you can't copy any of the books on shelf #3, even though a) I
> don't own the books and b) they are in the public domain.

You can do that because you own the copy machine.  But if a book is
in the public domain, that means that I don't own it and you don't
own it and you don't own it (and so on for the billions of people and
corporations and governments who can own things worldwide).

-- 
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
        --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God"
                John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org>