[sword-devel] Exclusive Rights Granting Crosswire License to Distribute

[Andrew Thule]

Umm, Greg, you realise that under Copyright Law Crosswire has no right
to Copy right text
either (at least not without license) or to void its own license agreement?

If Crosswire is licensed to distribute Copyright text for which it is not
the owner:
The Copyright Owner must establish the terms of the licensing with
Crosswire.

If Crossire then publicaly re-distributes the text under license, CrossWire
has a legal obligation under Copyright law, to uphold the owners orginal
license which means it can't keep the license agreement 'secret', otherwise
the constraints and allowances established in the original license are
being stopped at Crosswire.

Sorry, but Crosswire has an obligation (under Copyright law) as distributor
to share with its users the terms of each Copyright owner's license.

If Crosswire has the right distribute a module publically, than it can
prove it has this right by producing a licensing agreement since such an
agreement is how the orginal Copyright owner granted this right in the
first place.  Producing such an agreement also conveys to users of
CrossWire users their obligations inherited through their use of
CrossWire's module (since what restrictions allowances applied to
CrossWire, also apply to users).


~A


On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 1:09 PM, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Andrew Thule <thulester at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 11:12 AM, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:
> >
> >> No, we cannot publish the terms of licensing agreements. Think about it.
> >> These are confidential, privileged contracts between organizations.
> >
> >
> > Umm, with software Licenses, Acceptable Use Policies, Copyright
> Restrictions
> > and Copyright limitations are not typically priviledge ..
> >
> > The contractual agreement itself may be, but License for use, especially
> in
> > public forums is not, otherwise how can you come down so hard on someone
> > like me for trying to abide by licensing agreement when those agreements
> are
> > not know?
> >
> > You're saying on the one had I have to abide by Crosswire's agreement
> with
> > the Copyright Owner and on the other hand I cannot know what those
> > provisions are.
>
> False. We're saying you have to abide by Copyright laws. According to
> Copyright laws you have no claim on these modules unless there is
> either (1) no Copyright holder, as is the case for any modules in the
> public domain or (2) you have been granted permission by the Copyright
> holder. This could be in the case of content where the holder has
> publicly permitted anyone rights, otherwise you need to negotiate your
> own license with the Copyright holder if you want to distribute. You
> have no need to make your license public to anyone if you negotiate
> the rights to a module and neither does CrossWire. The only people who
> need to know the specific terms are CrossWire's point of contact
> (usually Troy or Chris but it could be whoever negotiated the
> contract) and the Copyright holder. Additionally a copy could be
> submitted to law enforcement or courts if legislation arose or the
> like.
>
> > For example, I am particularly disappointed that I was accused of
> breaking
> > Crosswire's licensing restrictions, yet no one has bothered to either
> > publically name one module that was available at my repo that should have
> > been, or provide access to Crosswire's license as evidence this was
> wrong.
>
> You don't need to see the specifics of CrossWire's license agreements.
> You just need to understand basic Copyright function. Is the text
> under Copyright? Do you have the permission of the Copyright holder to
> distribute the text? If the answer to the first question is "yes" and
> the answer to the second is "no" then you don't have the right to
> distribute the work. Regardless of who DOES have the right, you do
> not. And regardless of under which conditions they have the right, you
> do not.
>
> You don't need to know under what permissions CrossWire has the right
> to distribute a module publicly in electronic format anymore than you
> need to know what agreement Zondervan has to publish a paper copy. You
> also don't need to know what agreement Amazon has or Netflix has to
> electronically make available copies of movies to know that you do not
> have a right to mirror their content without permission from at least
> the Copyright holder.
>
> --Greg
>
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