MetaFilter posts tagged with OpenSource and copyright

Are laws public domain?

msalt — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:05:11 -0800

In the spirit of those who have patented living organisms, the State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee is demanding $30,000 from Justia.com for the right to publish Oregon Revised Statutes -- the laws of Oregon -- on their website for two years. To be exact, the committee does not claim copyright in the laws themselves, but "a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables, index and annotations and other such incidents as are the work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law." The correspondence. That's the same theory that West Law Co. has used to maintain a monopoly over legal decisions for years, though their power is eroding. Criticism: Citizen Media Law Project -- The Patry Copyright Blog ("Oregon goes wacka wacka huna kuna") -- ars technica -- The Washington Times -- Info/Law Support (sort of): Oregon Legal Research (blog)

SCO to IBM: Abandon that damned illegal GPL, you pirates!

JollyWanker — Sat, 16 Aug 2003 09:18:27 -0800

Take your hands off the GPL and back away from the keyboard... New twist in the SCO vs. IBM and the rest of the known computing universe: it appears SCO's primary argument in their case will in fact be that the GPL is invalid, trumped by US federal copyright law. (Quote redirect from via Inquirer from Wall Street Journal). And apparently, I'm not alone in beginning to think there's merit to the "Microsoft's behind all this!" conspiracy theories, since these "coincidences" are really starting to pile up...

Creative Commons launches

bkdelong — Mon, 16 Dec 2002 06:01:08 -0800

Open Source Copyright. As a follow-up to this thread, Creative Commons has now officially launched. I'm quite interested to see the various content creators who take these licenses and run with them - amateur filmmakers, independent musicians, authors, writers, and technologists .....should have groups like the MPAA and RIAA quaking in their boots.

Leonard — Tue, 30 Jul 2002 07:52:53 -0800

Open source music? Give away the songs without copyright, sell the audio source files dirt cheap and waive the copyright. That's the idea behind Brad Sucks. Are any bands you know of doing something like this?

taumeson — Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:39:08 -0800

New Scientist release a copyleft article on......wait for it......copyleft. In it, they discuss what's going on in the world of Open Source and how the meme is spreading from software into other areas, like encyclopedias and law. It concludes saying that open source is currently good for things that don't need to be confidential and do need to be consistently upgraded/changed. Does open source have a chance, or is it just a passing fad? via slashdot