From: Noel W. <noe...@ya...> - 2004-08-25 08:08:57
|
Hi all, Did some thinking last night prompted by what Sylvain wrote and I believe if we approach the issue of protecting the publisher's investment more directly we will obtain a better result. Basically, we want to say that no commercial entity can compete against our chosen publisher (publishers seem fine about non-commercial competition at this point in time). The current "4th amendment" attempts to address this indirectly by disallowing compilations, which doesn't directly address the publisher's concern and has unintended side effects. So I propose an amendment thusly: Thou shalt not distribute a compilation of material from the Cookbook by any means, including electronically or in print, for any reason except personal use without the prior consent of the SchematicsEditorsGroup. This means people can set up private mirrors of the Cookbook, print out copies for their friends and so on, without anyone getting in trouble. Which seems to cover the main issues. The final issue is: what if we all get assasinated in a coup d'etat (as is wont to happen to any successful Junta)? Well, we could add a clause to address this: The 4th amendment will no longer be held in effect should the SchematicsEditorsGroup be dissolved. But people, just trust us! :-D Noel ===== Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com AIM: noelhwelsh __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail |
From: Sylvain B. <be...@be...> - 2004-08-25 08:32:38
|
On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:08:49AM -0700, Noel Welsh wrote: > Thou shalt not distribute a compilation of material from > the Cookbook by any means, including electronically or in > print, for any reason except personal use without the prior > consent of the SchematicsEditorsGroup. I hope you are joking, this would make all the code non-free :) -- Sylvain |
From: Noel W. <noe...@ya...> - 2004-08-25 08:43:35
|
--- Sylvain Beucler <be...@be...> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:08:49AM -0700, Noel Welsh > wrote: > > Thou shalt not distribute a compilation of material > from > > the Cookbook by any means... > > I hope you are joking, this would make all the code > non-free :) Ok, it needs the "as a book" qualifiers but that isn't really the point... Noel ===== Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com AIM: noelhwelsh __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail |
From: Noel W. <noe...@ya...> - 2004-08-25 08:48:05
|
So maybe my definition isn't really any different from the current one. *sigh* Interesting reading: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html Off to the gym...hopefully inspiration will follow. Noel ===== Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com AIM: noelhwelsh __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail |
From: MJ R. <mj...@ds...> - 2004-08-25 09:23:34
|
On 2004-08-25 09:08:49 +0100 Noel Welsh <noe...@ya...> wrote: > Basically, we want to say that no commercial entity can > compete against our chosen publisher [...] This anti-commercialism really stinks. It's bad for programs and it's bad for books. It really is distressing to see what I thought was a free software group take this line. We know that there are commercial publishers who have published more liberally licensed books (Network Theory and O'Reilly to name two - do you think GNU Press do?) so why is it necessary to do this? Even with an anti-commercial clause, this group is still not going to be able to engage in a standard publishing contract. Standard contracts have terms like: "The Author hereby grants to the publishers the sole and exclusive right and licence throughout the world for the legal term of copyright: (a) to produce print publish and sell the Work or any abridgement of the Work or any part of the Work in volume form (b) To grant licences sell or otherwise exploit (i) Anthology digest and quotation rights (ii) Serial rights (iii) Broadcasting rights (iv) Television rights (v) Film rights (vi) Recording rights (vii) Translation rights (viii) All other rights not specifically referred to otherwise in this Agreement but which may now or hereafter be capable of exploitation by an owner of copyright in the Work." That's copied from a real book contract that I have lying around the office. The publisher published a range of paperback internet tutorials. It's not particularly unusual when it comes to copyright, as far as I can tell. Has anyone else here actually checked the copyright terms of a publisher's book contract? I didn't spot it in the archives. > But people, just trust us! :-D In god we trust. All others must bring data. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast |
From: Noel W. <noe...@ya...> - 2004-08-25 11:07:12
|
--- MJ Ray <mj...@ds...> wrote: > Has anyone else here actually > checked the copyright terms of a publisher's book > contract? Yeah, I have the APress standard contract in front of me. I'm trying to find people doing the same thing as us and see what decisions they have made. So far: http://perldesignpatterns.com/?HowToWrite If anyone can find additional resources I'd love to see them. APress is down at the moment so I can't check what licences they have published books under. Noel ===== Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com AIM: noelhwelsh _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush |
From: MJ R. <mj...@ds...> - 2004-08-25 11:46:29
|
On 2004-08-25 12:06:59 +0100 Noel Welsh <noe...@ya...> wrote: > Yeah, I have the APress standard contract in front of me. Does it say anything relevant? > I'm trying to find people doing the same thing as us and > see what decisions they have made. So far: > http://perldesignpatterns.com/?HowToWrite I don't see much reasoning for their decision there. Just looking at the decisions other make is not very useful to me: as far as I can tell, most books are published under licences granting the publisher the exclusive right to do almost anything with all of the work. > If anyone can find additional resources I'd love to see > them. http://www.network-theory.co.uk/ is another publisher. > APress is down at the moment so I can't check what licences > they have published books under. In March, you posted that APress seem OK with publishing LGPL'd works. http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=7618581 -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast |
From: Noel W. <noe...@ya...> - 2004-08-25 13:27:54
|
--- MJ Ray <mj...@ds...> wrote: > On 2004-08-25 12:06:59 +0100 Noel Welsh wrote: > > Yeah, I have the APress standard contract in front of > me. > > Does it say anything relevant? Nope. It has virtually the same restrictions as the one you posted. Counter-point: FDL book published by APress: http://diveintopython.org/ Also relevant is this discussion of the licence of the above book: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/10/msg00248.html At the moment I'm leaning toward just adopting the LGPL with no modifications. I shall cogitate for a while on this. Noel ===== Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com AIM: noelhwelsh __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail |
From: Anton v. S. <an...@ap...> - 2004-08-25 13:14:27
|
MJ Ray wrote: > On 2004-08-25 09:08:49 +0100 Noel Welsh <noe...@ya...> wrote: > > > Basically, we want to say that no commercial entity can > > compete against our chosen publisher [...] > > This anti-commercialism really stinks. It's bad for programs and it's > bad for books. It really is distressing to see what I thought was a > free software group take this line. Actually, I think the way Noel stated that is a bit too general. I'd say we want to be able to provide a publisher with some copyright protection against people producing exact copies, or very similar but lower quality knockoffs, of the book as produced by us. That kind of protection is common commercial practice, which is the reason we're pursuing it. > We know that there are commercial > publishers who have published more liberally licensed books (Network > Theory and O'Reilly to name two - do you think GNU Press do?) so why > is it necessary to do this? Because we don't yet have a publisher. We also have some reason to believe O'Reilly might not be interested in this particular book. Restricting our potential publishers to a very short list is what we're trying to avoid. > Even with an anti-commercial clause, this group is still not going to > be able to engage in a standard publishing contract. Standard > contracts have terms like: "The Author hereby grants to the publishers > the sole and exclusive right and licence throughout the world for the > legal term of copyright: (a) to produce print publish and sell the > Work or any abridgement of the Work or any part of the Work in volume > form (b) To grant licences sell or otherwise exploit (i) Anthology > digest and quotation rights (ii) Serial rights (iii) Broadcasting > rights (iv) Television rights (v) Film rights (vi) Recording rights > (vii) Translation rights (viii) All other rights not specifically > referred to otherwise in this Agreement but which may now or hereafter > be capable of exploitation by an owner of copyright in the Work." Regarding the suggestion I made (as opposed to Noel's which I haven't yet internalized), the "work" would be the compilation, and the above rights in that work can all be granted, as the publisher expects. > That's copied from a real book contract that I have lying around the > office. The publisher published a range of paperback internet > tutorials. It's not particularly unusual when it comes to copyright, > as far as I can tell. Has anyone else here actually checked the > copyright terms of a publisher's book contract? I didn't spot it in > the archives. I have some experience, having been involved with two book contracts, with John Wiley and IDG Books respectively (before the latter was acquired by Wiley). I've also had software publishing contracts, been a partner in a software publishing company, and worked with lawyers related to software licenses and other intellectual property issues. Anton |
From: MJ R. <mj...@ds...> - 2004-08-25 13:33:31
|
On 2004-08-25 14:16:08 +0100 Anton van Straaten <an...@ap...> wrote: > [...] Restricting our > potential publishers to a very short list is what we're trying to > avoid. You don't do that by guessing and handwaving. I also don't think this is a particularly important aim, as the list is going to be short anyway. >> Even with an anti-commercial clause, this group is still not going to >> be able to engage in a standard publishing contract. Standard >> contracts have terms like: "The Author hereby grants to the >> publishers >> the sole and exclusive right and licence throughout the world for the >> legal term of copyright: (a) to produce print publish and sell the >> Work or any abridgement of the Work or any part of the Work in volume >> form (b) To grant licences sell or otherwise exploit (i) Anthology >> digest and quotation rights (ii) Serial rights (iii) Broadcasting >> rights (iv) Television rights (v) Film rights (vi) Recording rights >> (vii) Translation rights (viii) All other rights not specifically >> referred to otherwise in this Agreement but which may now or >> hereafter >> be capable of exploitation by an owner of copyright in the Work." > Regarding the suggestion I made (as opposed to Noel's which I haven't > yet > internalized), the "work" would be the compilation, and the above > rights in > that work can all be granted, as the publisher expects. I just checked and in the contract I quoted from, the "work" is defined as the text. Trying to use the compilation as the "work" looks like it would require a custom contract anyway, so you might as well start by asking for the Earth and then see what you can get. >> [...] Has anyone else here actually checked the >> copyright terms of a publisher's book contract? I didn't spot it in >> the archives. > I have some experience, having been involved with two book contracts > [...] I don't doubt that, but it's not what I asked. Let me be clearer: Have you checked the copyright terms of publisher book contracts and can you share the relevant wording with us, please? Even so, I'm curious why you write "involved with". It's a weaker statement than I expected for you. If we're sharing relevant experiences now: myself, I've signed at least three contracts for (different pieces of) my written work, refused one and I've been paid for use of some other written work besides those. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast |
From: Anton v. S. <an...@ap...> - 2004-08-25 13:55:39
|
> > [...] Restricting our > > potential publishers to a very short list is what we're trying to > > avoid. > > You don't do that by guessing and handwaving. I'm not. > I also don't think this is a particularly important aim, > as the list is going to be short anyway. I disagree. We're trying to avoid making it any shorter than it already has to be. > I just checked and in the contract I quoted from, the "work" is > defined as the text. Trying to use the compilation as the "work" looks > like it would require a custom contract anyway No, compilations are standard things which publishers deal with, as I've mentioned before. > so you might as well > start by asking for the Earth and then see what you can get. That's fine, when it comes to a negotiation with a publisher. What we're doing now is keeping our options open for that negotiation. > I don't doubt that, but it's not what I asked. Let me be clearer: Have > you checked the copyright terms of publisher book contracts and can > you share the relevant wording with us, please? I haven't specifically checked any related to this discussion, because I'm already quite familiar with dealing with them in the various contexts I've mentioned. Also, based on my experience, a contract is not an entirely off-the-shelf affair - it's common to make changes to suit a specific situation. However, it helps if you can use the majority of an existing contract. Being able to grant a compilation copyright means that existing contracts can be used. > Even so, I'm curious why you write "involved with". It's a weaker > statement than I expected for you. If we're sharing relevant > experiences now: myself, I've signed at least three contracts for > (different pieces of) my written work, refused one and I've been paid > for use of some other written work besides those. I write software for a living, not prose. I wrote "involved with" because my involvement with books has usually been as a contributor of chapters (hence some familiarity with the compilation issue), or as a co-author (e.g. "Clipper Problem Solver"). In the one case where I was lead author, I eventually declined the contract, because of unreasonable time limits (six weeks to write "DCOM for Dummies" -- I note with satisfaction that the subsequent author didn't fare much better, abandoning the project after apparently writing 5 chapters). Anton |