The Copyright Act preempts the GPL

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

Ken Brown wrote:
> Well, if everything else is a derivative...then how can anyone claim to
> be the original owner?  I mean how many original owners can you have?
> There can only be one, whether the license says you can transfer it to
> 10,000 people...right?  

Why can't there be more than one? Why can't there be 10 or 10,000? I've 
collaborated with others on both fiction and non-fiction works. In many 
cases there is no single, original owner for a program, story or musical 
work. Who "owns" a piece of improvisational jazz created live by a group 
of five or six (or 20 or 50) musicians?


> So help me understand your earlier point.  To charge that someone has
> violated a copyright, doesn't the original owner have to make the
> charge? Otherwise, we don't know where the true property rights
> ----started right?

I have trouble with this endless emphasis on "true property rights" and 
attempts to squeeze every possible penny out of every transaction. I 
create original articles and stories -- what some would call 
"intellectual property" -- for a living (and make a pretty decent living 
at it), but I am old enough to remember the days when Selfishness and 
Greed were considered sins -- and mortal ones, at that.

God and I still believe they are. We are obviously out of step with the 
times, aren't we?

- Robin


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