On 06/07/2012 12:32 PM, Tom Davies wrote: > Hi :) > So, a company would be taking a small risk by grabbing it. If they grab > enough then statistics work in their favour. I'm not a copyright legal > expert but i wonder if applying a copyleft agreement would create enough > uncertainty as to prevent the rights being subverted by some profit hungry > company? > Regards from > Tom :) The owner of the copyright can sue for infringement so if a company or anyone else tried to squat on the copyright. To do anything legally with any work you need permission from the copyright owner. The permission should by in writing either via a publicly posted Creative Commons type license from the owner or a contract granting permission by the owner to the user. If one claims an invalid ownership of the copyright I am not sure of all the legal consequences other than I do not want to find out. This is why many FOSS projects ask the creators to release their work under the appropriate software license or Creative Commons license to avoid these problems later and to clearly establish the end user rights upfront. IMHO a common misconception is that Creative Commons invalidates the copyright when it actually grants specific, blanket usage rights to any user while reserving all other rights to the owner.
The problem with abandonware is that the copyright is possibly owned by defunct company. depending on the origin of the work and any relevant contracts; the copyright may have reverted to someone else (most likely the original creator) or is still owned by the defunct company. The problem is finding these records to determine who owns the copyright. Even if one is diligent one could easily miss the relevant records and then be sued by the actual owner of the abandonware copyright. Also, abandonware is often covered by the traditional "all rights reserved" copyright notice and not a Creative Commons type license. If the copyright is actually still owned by the defunct company you have the problem of who has legal authority to grant you permission. I keep up with copyright issues because I know several professional photographers and am advanced amateur photographer. Having a working knowledge of the copyright law is important for me both to protect my interests and avoid infringement. > > > --- On Thu, 7/6/12, Andy Theuninck <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Andy Theuninck <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Font Problems on OS X > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, 7 June, 2012, 16:48 > > I'm certainly not a lawyer or anything, but I don't think abandonware > automatically enters public domain. The copyright remains valid even > if the company holding it has no assets. That's pretty well > established with software. I doubt it would be different with fonts. > > On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Tom Davies <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi :) >> Quick! Re-licence the legacy fonts under Creative Coomons copyleft to >> prevent some other company being far less honest than you are being. I take >> it a company could easily and safely copyright those fonts and then charge >> people for using them? Some companies put quite a lot of effort into >> profiting off other people's work in this way. >> Regards from >> Tom :) >> >> >> --- On Thu, 7/6/12, Andy Theuninck <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> From: Andy Theuninck <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Font Problems on OS X >> To: [email protected] >> Date: Thursday, 7 June, 2012, 15:19 >> >>> Is there any advantage to using Type-1 fonts over the other two formats, >>> with OSX? >>> >>> It there a way to replace the "problem" Type-1 fonts with TTF or OTF, or use >>> a 99.9% similar font as a replacement font? >> There's no advantage. The main catch is the company I licensed the >> fonts from no longer exist, and my license agreement doesn't permit >> converting them. Obviously the odds of getting sued are pretty much >> zero, but in principle I try to abide by agreements. >> >> I can use NeoOffice for anything that needs that font; it's just kind >> of a pain since LO is a better program otherwise. >> >> -- >> For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] >> Problems? >> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ >> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette >> List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ >> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be >> deleted >> >> >> -- >> For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] >> Problems? >> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ >> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette >> List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ >> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be >> deleted >> -- Jay Lozier [email protected] -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
