"Mahesh T. Pai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The law, as it stands,does not give you the right to modify, or > distribute a copyrighted work. But, so long as your's is a legal copy > you are free to exercise all fair use rights available to you under > the law of copyright.
What you describe here bears no relation to copyright law in the United States, and little relation to what I know of the copyright laws of other nations. For a start, "fair use rights" are not enumerated in US legislation -- they are alluded to in some laws, and mentioned in court cases, but intentionally underspecified. > The non-free licenses take away even your fair use rights because what > you get is a license, and not a copy itself. My unsubstantiated impression is that courts have said licenses can't remove fair use rights. > You get the fair use rights when what you have is a copy; when you > are _licensed_ a copy, you get precisely what is licensed to you, > nothing more, nothing less. The GPL uses this technique employed by > proprietary licenses to grant you more rights than what is given by > the ordinary copyright law. GPL #5 takes care of situations where > you receive an infringing copy. > > You can violate the GPL only when you try to distribute a work. > without complying with its terms. (modification, without > redistribution, does not attract GPL) You fail to distinguish between modification of an instance of a work -- such as sawing a book in half, or writing notes in the margins -- and creation of a derivative work. Most of what programmers call "modification" is actually preparation of a derivative work. You have no right to do so except as granted by a license, such as the GPL. > Even when you violate the GPL, you still can continue to use the > work itself. That is a wonder of the law of copyright, not the GPL. > The GPL applies ONLY to (a) modifications, (2) distribution / > copying, and (3) distributing extracts or modified > copies. Therefore, you are mistaken in statements 4 and 5 above. > > GPL 4 and 5 simply reminds you the effect of law and the provisions of > the GPL. What you say here is exceptionally misleading. -Brian > Again, people receiving derivative works get rights in entire works, > not a license to the derivative works. So, #2 above is a bit off the > mark. > > Hope that clears things up. > > -- > +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ > > Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., > 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, > Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, > Kerala, India. > > http://in.geocities.com/paivakil > > +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ -- Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
