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

[DM Smith]

On Jan 7, 2013, at 12:58 PM, 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 ..

Each copyright owner has several fields in the conf that they can fill out with that information. Most use the About field. A few use some other fields. Consult the module's conf for the information that you want. If it is not there then please assume that the owner did not want to share it or did not provide it.

>  
> 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. 
>  
> I think if you check the contract, you'll see the actually license agreement as an Appendix or something of that sort for this very reason.

Have I come down hard on you? I know I have been direct and have tried to be informative.

We've only been talking about one part of the license agreement: the right to re-distribute modules. We think that the DistributionLicense field states it very well.

>  
> 
> The contracts are dictated by the publishers. When asked what they need to say, we provide the broadest description of what they need to say at minimum, but we don't ever suggest particular wording or terms. If the terms are unacceptable to us, we communicate that clearly and let them either amend their terms or withdraw the module.
> Yes, true, however Crosswire as the licensee is not dealing with paper, but with digital forms of the text, so presumably as the licensee you've worked through some of the issues related to dealing with 'digial format'.  At least your this recent business between Chris, Peter and I suggests that this is the case.
>  
> Although the terms of Crosswire license to use of these Copyright works are not clear to me (dispite what Chris and Peter would have you believe) because I've seen no such terms, they are apparently clear to Chris and Peter.   I have no trouble believing Chris and Peter have seen them, or they wouldn't be calling me to account.

I don't think that is the case. I work on copyright modules and have never seen a license agreement. I've never felt the need to see it. I always treat a copyrighted work as a confidential, intellectual property to which I only have sufficient privileges to do my work on the module. I'm sure that I might be going beyond what is required, but I'd rather make that mistake than betraying the owner's trust.

Peter and Chris will have seen those agreements that they have participated in obtaining. They have no need to have seen any others.

>  
>  
> We only need to prove our assertion with the publishers. Which we have do on occasion.
> Agreed.
>  
> 
> The wording of your request is inviting a "go pound sand" response. Please be careful in how you word things.
> 
> DM, I will be careful how I word things because such advice is always prudent advice.
>  
> That said, I deny I was telling anyone to 'pound sand'.  I am disappointed at the way my character, purpose, and contribution is contantly maligned in these discussions.  It send the signal that 'new-comers' and their ideas are not welcome here dispite the claim this is an open community. This treatment on the part of some is not uniform by any means.
>  
> However the method of dealing with conflict among Christian's is covered in the bible, and my disappointment stems from the idea that not all who engage in these disagreements make efforts to disagree on biblical principles.  (I assume everyone here is a Christian).
>  
> 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.

Peter has told you privately of at least one that he was able to download. Do you want that to be repeated here?

>  
> If Crosswire has legitimate license to distribution Copyright text and is going to use this license agreement like a hammer, it's not unrasonable to ask that it be made public, otherwise it has no right to defer to it in issues of disagreement.

We accurately summarize it in the conf. We have explained it here. What is hard about understanding that? What more is needed?

In His Service,
	DM

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