> Also, Mark's point (I think) is that a copyright lawsuit against the > FSF is much more likely than a lawsuit against some no-name > contributor, and (more importantly) a lawsuit against the FSF is > likely to trigger the FSF to launch a lawsuit against the individual > contributor. Thus, it sort of seems to the individual contributor that > assigning copyrights to the FSF while maintaining 'unlimited > liability' is less safe than not assigning copyrights to the FSF.
Perhaps, but liability is less of an issue for individual than corporations because individuals have few assets. This thread started with a complaint about unlimited liability FROM A CORPORATION, who are the people that tend to worry about such things. On the other hand, the FSF doesn't exactly have a lot of assets, so suing it wouldn't be very productive either. To me, point is this: if you don't have many assets, there isn't a difference between a "unlimited" liability and the sort of limit that would exist in this context. If you DO have a large number of assets, then you're actually a BETTER target than the FSF! And then there's the argument I made before: if you're INNOCENT of an accuses infringment and you DON'T assign to somebody, then YOU get the job of defending the merits of the case instead of the entity you assign it to. The bottom line, to me, is this: if you ARE guilty of infringement, you ARE sued and they prevail, then there's no difference whatsoever between the assignment case. That's the only case where there's significant liability and what people are most worried about. If one of those three ISN'T true, then you can make various arguments one way or the other based on the perceived likelihood of somebody suing somebody else, the costs of a defence, and the chance of losing a case that you "should" have won. Some scenarios seem to go one way and some the other, but basically it's all a guess. That's why I say there's no difference in the two cases.
