[Savannah-register-public] [task #14621] Submission of Graph Model Library

[Ineiev]

Follow-up Comment #9, task #14621 (project administration):

> > Yes, but in most countries copyright law complies with the Berne
> > Convention, and it says that the authors shall enjoy economic
> > rights unless they transfer their rights to someone else.
> 
> It is true that the Berne Convention has 172 parties, and that that group
> likely includes all relevant jurisdictions for practical purposes. However,
it
> is not at all the case that the Berne Conventions protects “economic
> rights”.

No, it has provisions for both economic and moral rights, if you mean that.

> Neither does US or German copyright law; I doubt any copyright law
> does. Specifically, the Berne Convention protects the following rights:
> translation, making adaptations and arrangements, public performance,
> recitation, broadcast, or other communication, reproduction, and use as
basis
> for audiovisual work.

These are economic rights.

> The US law protects rights expressed slightly
> differently: reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution of
> copies, public performance, public display, and digital transmission.

These are economic rights, too.

> The
> details of how the requirements of the Berne Convention are met, i.e., the
> laws in place that actually protect these rights, can and do differ among
> jurisdictions.  For example, in the US one can transfer copyright
ownership,
> whereas in Germany that is not possible to do.

This would be relevant if Germany didn't provide any means
to effectively transfer economic rigths; however, it does.

> Who is able to seek remedies
> and what remedies are possible depend on the details of local law.

In the context of our discussion, it's relevant that the authors (until
they transfer certain parts of their rights) are able to seek remedies.
The Berne Convention requires this, therefore it should be the case
both in the US and in Germany as well as in Kyrgyzstan.

> Even
> worse, the identification of which local law prevails is not even clear for
> works (such as software under development worldwide) that are published
widely
> and simultaneously.

I guess the courts are going to use their local law---in all cases compliant
with the Berne Convention.

> One relevant consequence of this is that in US courts
> contributors to software only have standing for their own contribution in
the
> absence of some procedure that clearly establishes the right for some
person
> or entity to act on their behalf.

Do you mean they are denied the right to hire a lawyer?  This seems
extremely surprising.  I believe it would violate the UDHR.
Could you support this with some references?

> > > Nothing in the policy I have identified conflicts with anyone's
> > > ability to maintain the free status of a GPLed program (or library in
> > > this case). After all, it is released under the GPL and thus by design
> > > cannot be made "unfree".
> > 
> > If "Us" decide to release a proprietary version of the library,
> > the library in that version will be nonfree. The only people
> > who could prevent this are contributors---but if they sign that
> > agreement, they can’t.
> 
> This is fundamentally irrelevant to whether this is free software.  Yes,
all
> sorts of hypothetical things can occur in the future.  However, none of
those
> activities have any bearing on the rights of people wishing to use released
> code, contributions to that released code, derivative works, or anything
else.

Yes, I think the activity of "Us" releasing a proprietary version
of the library in binary-only form has some bearing on the rights
of people wishing to use derivative works, in particular,
that proprietary version of the library.  Why doesn't it?

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