[sword-devel] CrossWire mirroring

Fri Jan 11 17:08:10 MST 2013

Nic, no I didn't miss the point.

You are claiming this privelge is exclusive.  If so, the terms of this
agreement must be both registered and public.  Anyone can claim anything
they want about what they are able to do, and what others are not able to
do, but these claims are only true if the terms of the law is met.

As long as Crosswire is engaged in the public non-commercial distribution
of modules, and refused to prove its right to do this is exclusive, it
should accept is has no ability to control them once they've left Crosswire.

~A

On Friday, January 11, 2013, Nic Carter wrote:

> Hi Andrew,
>
> You completely miss the point!
>
> CrossWire has the right to distribute certain modules. In order to satisfy
> our legal agreement with the copyright holders we can can only distribute
> from "CrossWire". We do not own the copyright, we have to abide by the same
> rules as anyone else. We are simply in the awesome position of having been
> granted permission.
>
> Also, when I say "we", I am meaning CrossWire. However, even though I am a
> volunteer as part of CrossWire, that does not give me the right to
> distribute anything. Distribution has to be simply by CrossWire and the
> most proper way to satisfy those legal agreements is to distribute from an
> official CrossWire domain so as to strive the hardest to remain above
> board. :)
>
> I am now lead to believe that what certain other people have said here is
> correct and that you do not understand any of this legal mumbo jumbo at
> all, and hence I think you should cease trying to educate others and
> instead simply cede to Troy and if you wish to help with this project,
> follow his lead, asking him what he wants of you.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Nic...  :)
>
> On 12/01/2013, at 10:40, Andrew Thule <thulester at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'thulester at gmail.com');>>
> wrote:
>
> Ultimately, the issue is about licensing rights on modules, which appears
> to be a very touchy subject around here.  I suspect this is so because
> without actual licenses, which are essentially legal agreements (I'm not
> talking about .conf files which are not legal agreements), its pretty much
> impossible to claims legal rights and restrictions exist without proof.
>
> As people like to point out, Copyright resides with the Copyright owner.
>  For a third party to 'claim' the right to distribute text they are not the
> Copyright owner of, explicit license had to have been given (a legally
> binding agreement).  What this means for mirrors is this:
>
> Anyone can run an FTP service.
> Anyone can call the directories anything they want in said FTP service.
> What people place in their FTP servers is where the controversy starts.
>
> Others, (not me) have already pointed out that Crosswire doesn't (and
> can't) control modules once they leave Crosswire's repo.  This means
> Crosswire, as the non-owner, has nothing to say about modules elsewhere.
>  Crosswire tries to asserts legal right over some modules however.  There
> are only two ways under copyright law, Crosswire can exercise rights over
> copyrighted work:
>
> 1. Direct Ownership. Para 106 of of US Copyright law says that
> the Copyright owner has exclusive rights over their wok, so Crosswire would
> have to prove it were the Copyright Owner; or
> 2. Transfer and Licensing of rights. The Owner can transfer rights through
> formal agreement specificaly expressing those rights (and ultimately
> granted through a written instrument, signed by the grantor). This is
> a license, or possibly exclusive license.  Under US law, exclusive
> licenses must be recorded in the US Copyright office or exclusive license
> is not valid (Para 408)
>
> If Crosswire has been exclusively license then, it may establish a rule
> only certain repositories may distribute modules, but the terms of this
> license (with the Copyright owner) are not secret (and indeed a matter of
> public record).
> If Crosswire has not been exclusively licensed however, Crosswire has no
> legal right to prohibit others from distributing modules it freely
> distributes in a non-commercial manner (however much it rants and maligns
> others).
>
> That means for there to be a *.crosswire.org 'rule' Crosswire's exclusive
> license must be registered and public, or it lacks authority to assert
> rights over text it doesn't own. People should not get upset when this
> rule is not followed then.
>
> (Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the law)
>
> ~A
>
> On Thursday, January 10, 2013, David Blue wrote:
>
> Based on the*.crosswire.org rule I would say the best option when and if
> mirrors are needed is to have some sort of round robin dns that picks a
> mirror from an internal list the way microsoft.com or my Linux distro
> does download.opensuse.org for it's package repos. Sorry for the top post'
>
> Nic Carter <niccarter at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
> Sent from my phone, hence this email may be short...
>
> On 08/01/2013, at 8:51, Andrew Thule <thulester at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> As long as Crosswire has policies in place govererning official mirrors there should no no worries mirrors are out of sync, in which case preferred mirror selection can be left to the user, and indeed mirror checking behaviour configurable.
>
>
>
>
> Yup, policy is no mirrors at this point in time.
> It is thought that there _may_ be room in the future for some, but these will be done from a *.crosswire.org domain so as to satisfy copyright requirements.
>
>
>
> Easy :)
>
> Thanks for your thoughts & I'm glad we can now put this discussion to rest. :)
>
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