Licensing Process
(draft)
This abstract analysis focuses to reduce the complex topic to the essential points in context of open source sybsystem integration. This points can be verified later by a lawyer.
Notes
base:wiki:JointCopyrightAssignment
Basics
- a) To Grant a License you must own a Right to do so.
- => verify validity of statement
Resources
- Copyright.com
- copyright.gov
- Copyright Law of the United States of America
- Copyright Registration for Computer Programs
- http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2001/l_167/l_16720010622en00100019.pdf
- http://www.euro-copyrights.org
- http://www.fipr.org/copyright/guide/
Talks
Copyright Assignment Grade
Copyright Avoidance
(verify validity)
- Analytical tasks do not need a copyright transfere
- Provide preparing work (analysis, tests etc.) on own resources / domain
- avoid writing directly code, provide solution paths instead (=know how)
- The Client retrieves know-how and implements the solution
Open Source Contribution
The Client sponsors a rework on a open-source-subsystem. The Consultant releases the code under the same license (repository commit). The Client retrieves the code as usual from the open source project.
Benefits:
- eliminating the need for an additional license / contract.
- increases reputation within open source domain (of both, commercial entity and consultant)
Joint Copyright Assignment
The contributor assigns a "Joint Ownership" into the Copyright and other IP rights.
Contributor can continue the results that he has produced within own projects, without violating a copyright.
Full Copyright Assignment Backlicensed
The contributor assigns copyrights to the client and thus looses all copyrights.
The Commercial Entity grants liberal license back to the contributor.
- Passes Requirements of Commercial Entity
- Can pass Requirements of Consultant (depending on task, topic)
Full Copyright Assignment
The contributor assigns copyrights to the client and thus looses all copyrights.
- Passes Requirements of Commercial Entity
- Can pass Requirements of Consultant (depending on task, topic)
Work made for hire
The safest way for a copyright assignment seems an employee relation.
This results in that contributions are treated legally as a "work made for hire", and assigns authorship and thus copyright to the Client. Sidenote: "Work made for hire" declared with a contract (client/consultant) can become a risk for the client, see links below:
Tasks:
- verify and backup all statements.