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

[Andrew Thule]

Chris this list in an of itself is not sufficient (legally) to establish
these principles.  It is the Copyright owners who make this determination,
not Crosswire list members.

Each Copyright owner is entitled to impose unique restrictions on the use
of their texts.  CrossWire is bound on a module by module basis to abide by
the license agreement agreed to by the Copyright owner. (Although these
agreements may be smiliar, I doubt very much they are exactly the same.
You can see from comparing ESV's general license to ISVs general license
(found under legal) they differ.

It may be the case that the ISV foundations license to Crosswire is not as
restritive as Peter and Chris claimed and my action of sharing a compile
module on a separate server didn't in fact breach anything.  Only by
inspecting Crosswire's license obligations can this be determined though.

Now that I've been tarred and feathered, I would kind of like to know if
Crosswires license to distrbiute the ISV indeed prohibits this (so I can
know if I'm guilty as charged or not).  Also, if no such restriction
exists, Peter's claim that I have no right to distribute the ISV doesn't
hold, and I'll consider continuing to server it on my repo.

~A


On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Chris Burrell <chris at burrell.me.uk> wrote:

> I think we've got the answers across multiple threads.  DM answers your
> question in my thread.  others in other threads.
>
> 1. All modules are fair game for sword front ends to use and display.
>
> 2. Modifying modules and/or redistributing is not allowed for modules
> marked as Copyrighted permission granted CrossWire
>
> 3. Conf files are occasionally  inconsistent in the copyright field and
> therefore setting up mirrors is strongly discouraged as mirror owners may
> well end up hosting modules illegally. This threatens the ongoing
> relationship between CrossWire and the publishers.
>
> 4. Modifying modules in general is discouraged as a lonesome task as there
> are often tools used to generate these modules and therfore the source may
> not be available to the keen module editor. There may also be extra
> restrictions on this modules which restrict the type of modifications, e.g.
> adding strong numbers
>
> 5. As a result of 4, everyone is encouraged to contact Chris L to find out
> who the 'owner' of a module is before making any modifications but will
> then be encouraged to participate is circumstances allow.
>
> 6. Sword and JSword so not cope well with repositories hosting the same
> module.  This is a further reason for discouraging the instalation of
> Mirrors for public use.
>
> Hope that is a good summary of the discussion so far.
>
> Chris
> On 7 Jan 2013 17:59, "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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>> ~A
>>
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