[jawsscripts] Re: License and Copyright

Good evening,

Copyright and licensing works differently in different legal  
jurisdictions.  The following is general and not to be treated as  
legal advice.

1. Almost any written work can be copyrighted.  A copyright is a piece  
of intellectual property, it can be sold or given away.  Depending on  
the jurisidiction copyright may need to be explicitly expressed, in  
others it is implicit upon the authors publication of the work.

2. If you own the intellectual property rights to a work then you can  
license others to use the work.  There are many licensing schemes to  
choose from, or you can write your own.  gpl, lgpl (limited), bsd are  
only a few.

3. If you are producing a work for someone else, an individual or  
company, particulary if you are being paid for the production of the  
work, then you need to be careful to specify that they are paying you  
for your labor, and that they will not own the intellectual property  
rights to the finished work.  When I do work for an organization I  
normally specify that they will receive a perpetual, non-exclusive  
license to the work, meaning that they can use the work forever, but  
that their license to do so is non-exclusive and that I can also use  
the work for anything that I like, as I still own the intellectual  
property rights and have not given them away by selling the rights, or  
by offering an exclusive license to use the work.

HTH,
Everett


On 26-Mar-09, at 7:02 PM, Donald Marang wrote:

> Is there any process for licensing your software or applying for a  
> copyright?  Or are these things simply declared by the owner?  I am  
> asking because Verizon has shown interest in my scripts for Verizon  
> Call Assistant.  I intend to distribute them free to the blind  
> community.  I would not want Verizon or anyone else to "steel" them  
> or profit from them.
> Jamal, what is the first "L" in LGPL stand for?  From reading your  
> description, I am guessing it stands for Limited.
>
> I am more familiar with the patent process.  My Uncle worked for GE  
> Plastics all his life and they had a policy of a $1 award for each  
> patent!  I know Microsoft and the record companies make a huge deal  
> about copyright.  Is this just declared, like placing a copyright  
> notification at the bottom of a web page, or is there a legal  
> registration somewhere?
>
> Don Marang
> __________
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