Copyright and License

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

cjc26 at nospam.cornell.edu (Cliff Crawford) writes:

> I've actually heard the opposite said by people defending the GPL.
> Supposedly if you release something as PD, or even with a BSD or other
> license, then a Big Corporation can take your code, assert copyright on
> it without even making any modifications or anything, and then sue you
> for distributing "their" code.  So that's why everyone should use the
> GPL.  At least, that's how their argument goes..

They *can* assert copyright on modified versions of it, but not on
what you've released into the public domain.  (two words: prior art)

> I don't really have the time or the legal expertise to sit down and read
> copyright laws, and there's so many different interpretations of the GPL
> that I'm wary of using that too.  So I just slap a BSD license on
> everything and hope for the best :)  I think I'll look more into PD
> though, it sounds like it's not as dangerous as I thought it was.

I think that after this thread I'm going to be putting stuff into the
public domain... (thanks tim!)

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