Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.

Michael Poole
2005-04-11T13:36:36Z

Humberto Massa writes:

> David Schwartz wrote:
>
>> > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 08:07:03PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>
>> >> The way you stop someone from distributing part of your work is
>> >> by arguing that the work they are distributing is a derivative
>> >> work of your work and they had no right to *make* it in the first
>> >> place. See, for example, Mulcahy v. Cheetah Learning.
>>
>>
>> > Er, that's one way, but not *the* way. I could grant you
>> > permission to create derivatives of my work, but not to
>> > redistribute them. To stop you from distributing them, I'd argue
>> > that you had no right to distribute them--you *did* have the right
>> > to make it in the first place.
>>
>>
>> You could do that be means of a contract, but I don't think you could
>> it do by means of a copyright license. The problem is that there is
>> no right to control the distribution of derivative works for you to
>> withhold from me.
> Wrong, sorry. Copyright is a *monopoly* on some activities (copy,
> distribution of copies, making *and* distribution of derivative works).

Copyright law only _explicitly_ grants a monopoly on preparation of
derivative works. However, it is trivial, and overwhelmingly common,
for a copyright owner to grant a license to create a derivative work
that is conditional on how the licensee agrees to distribute (or not
distribute) the derivative work.

Michael Poole