Question about copyright/licensing...

[vttom]

Does this forum have a policy regarding copyrights and/or licensing of circuit diagrams or source code published to the forum?

Obviously, it is illegal to publish someone else's copyrighted work. That's not what I'm asking about.

I'm talking about the case where I am the original author of the work and want to share it with the PICAXE community. Is it assumed that everything published to the forum is released to the public domain, or can authors retain copyright with a simple copyright statement, or maybe release it under the GPL?

 

[eclectic]

vttom.

Please re-post this question in the main/active forum.

This section is for finished projects, and it is less likely to be noticed here.

e

 

[hippy]

[ Moved to Active Forum ]

@ vttom : I don't have an authorative answer ( only Admin or Technical can give that ) but my understanding is that you do not lose any rights by posting to the forum, although there's an obviously implied granting of license for the forum to carry the posts and any attachments, links etc. Copyrights remains with the original author so anything you produce can only be used as and how you license that, and I believe you are entitled to choose any license you wish.

If there's any concern, the best approach is perhaps to post to the extent you are happy with and include links to where you have put the material you wish to explicitly keep under copyright and only issued under license. It's then up to anyone following those links to your original works to respect your licensing. No argument, "it was Public Domain, it was on the PICAXE forum", it was not ( not that the Public Domain argument would likely stand up in court anyway ).

My personal preference for licensing is the "MIT License", which is basically 'do whatever you want with it but I retain copyright on the original work', but it's up to an originating author to choose the most appropriate licensing for their works.

 

[Michael 2727]

You should © copyright any/all new ideas, code or circuits you develope yourself, unless
you don't care what happens to it ever.

If you don't, it could in some rare cases come back and bite you in the butt at a later date.
Say for instance that someone else Copyrighted your work or included it in a Patent that
was eventyally granted, you could be prevented from using your own work in any
future commercial venture.
Or it could cost you a fortune in litigation defending your own work.
Unless you could prove that it was your work and had been published or used at an earlier date.

In many cases the use of copyrighted material for personal (non commercial) use is
quite acceptable. But there are a million variations of the use of copyrighted material
for personal use e.g. Music CDs or DVDs etc.
(If I bought the CD and own it, I should be entitled to rip it to my MP3 player, yeah you wish !)
Read the accompanying Copyright notice if there is one.

If you have any original work of your own, Copyright it by all means, post it here as
copyrighted and available for personal or educational use or as MIT licensed.
Don't post other peoples copyrighted material unless you have their premission to do so.

Basically read the Copyright notice if there is one, don't abuse it and you should be fine.

There has been some very creative work done in the picaxe community and in this forum
it would be a pity to be excluded from using your own work if a commercial opportunity
ever presented itself at a later date.

 

[westaust55]

copyright is now getting to the stage where if you overhear a conversation someone is making on a phone (and that includes mobiles out on the street), then the legal system can be used against those who use the information that they have overheard.

Sad state of affairs but that is what is starting to happen.

If you really care/worry, then add a statement into the header/intro of your program/information as a starting point.

 

[Jeremy Leach]

Does this mean we can expect a great idea to be shared with us soon ? Hope so

Just one thought - perhaps it's better to have your work published on a third-party forum like this, because any arguments about when you published are more compelling ?

 

[Michael 2727]

Good point Jeremy.

Proving the first date of use or publication of material is quite often the only
thing you need to do to stop any drawn out legal battles.
Posting here is as good a place as any.

One of the criterion of a valid Copyright is that the item should have been published.

It would be hard to prove that the circuit I had stashed away in my safe since 1964
(that no one has ever seen)
for a noise reduction/compression/pre-emphasis/de-enphasis system was in fact
the exact same design Mr Dolby and the boys in his lab came up with.
Hence they now owe me $0.7 Trillion in royalties ~ ;o)
That and the fact that I prbably had not yet learned to read in 1964.

But don't hold your breath waiting to get hold of a copy of the Coca Cola recipe
or for Colonel Sanders' 11 herbs Secret mix or even the PICAXE source code.
There are other ways to protect secret stuff

 

[Jeremy Leach]

Thinking about it - nothing to stop anyone editing an old thread they started and turning it into a copy of a recent great idea, claiming it was theirs at an earlier date ! Although the subsequent outcry recorded on the forum would probably be enough proof it was a fake

 

[BeanieBots]

Not to mention the "last edit" date.

 

[RexLan]

It seems to me that if thcopyright is even an issue for consideration the author should not post it in the first place.

Secondly, it seems unrealistic for an author to post on a public forum, possibly receive ideas advice or support from third parties, and then subsequently make a copyright claim.

I doubt an author would be successful in any litigation for infringement if the information had been made available in the public domain by that author.

 

[LizzieB]

If you are concerned about your rights relating to material you intend to post on here or any other forum you should consult an attorney with experience in this area. Almost all the information you will get in response to posting the question on a forum such as this one will be incorrect.

 

[hippy]

@ LizzieB : I don't think the responses will be that incorrect, but not necessarily the entire truth of the whole, but I suspect that's what you intended to convey.

Even an experience attorney can only give the best advice they can and copyright, licensing and the whole IP field is a nightmare to find oneself in at times, although in general terms it is quite simple, with my personal perspective being -

* Copyright holders alone control entirely how their work may be used or copied by others, and equally how it may not be used or copied.

* Copyright holders grant rights to others to use their works with requirements and restrictions imposed by way of Licensing.

* Those granted a licence can use the Copyrighted work to the extent that the license allows them to.

Most copyright disputes seem to arise when someone claims someone's work is covered by their own copyright, arguments over whether copyright even exists, who actually holds the copyright and to what, and whether or not use is in accordance with licensing terms.

Then there's patents and trademark issues on top.

My personal feeling is ( for one's own works ), "publish and be damned", choose a suitable license you like and that's the end of it, hope people stick to it, go after people if they don't and if you feel strongly enough about it.

Perhaps the best simple approach compromise is to include the licensing condition, "Not for commercial use. Contact author at ..." or similar. Reputable commercial users will honour that. Disreputable commerical users will probably abuse you regardless. You cannot prevent that ( except by not publishing ), only punish them later if you are fortunate enough to be able to do so.

As LizzieB says, you need to talk to the legal experts if you want to get into real serious discussion of IP protection.

 

[LizzieB]

@hippy

Thank you. I was trying to avoid controversy by speaking in general of folks posting this kind of question to a forum and not focus on the specifics of what has been posted above.

 

[Michael 2727]

There are also places on the planet who don't give a Rat's about any Copyright or Patent Laws.
A company I was once working for had developed a portable (wireless) EFTPOS system,
mainly for the US market at the time.
Anyway they had the control PCBs made and populated in china and the radio gear PCBs
made locally, and we were assembling the units here in OZ.

The reasoning was when the Chinese eventually worked out what the units were for
and could start to mass reproduce them, the company here would have had a 2 year
head start and have much of the market already covered.
The units were to cater for Car Boot/Trunk sales or mobile vendors, where you could
pull out your machine swipe the customers card an off you went.

So the next time you send your secret design off to China to get the PCBs made for
a dollar each, don't include too much information e.g. component values, chip IDs etc.

 

[BeanieBots]

The "big boys" are just as bad.
We sold a multi-£M peice of kit to one.
Got a service call one day only to find 5 "identical" bits of kit next to it
At ~£6M each, we kept very good records of where each one is in the world!