[License-review] Review for the NIST Software License

[Rob Landley]

On 9/30/25 10:05, McCoy Smith wrote:
> It's always been the position of the US government that although by 
> statute (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105) government- 
> created works may not be copyrighted in the USA, they may be protected 
> by copyright outside the USA: https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright. 
> USG may also hold copyright in assigned works.

The trick they use is to hire contractors, who are not technically 
"employees" of the government and thus get copyrights to the works they 
create, and then have those contractors (or subcontractors, whatever the 
shell game is this week) assign their copyrights to the government as 
part of the contract.

Rob