D logo copyright

[Alix Pexton via Digitalmars-d]

On 16/07/2014 9:12 AM, Sönke Ludwig wrote:

> As far as I know, this is the "Verwertungsrecht" (roughly the right to
> distribute) and the "Nutzungsrecht" (the right to use). Both can be
> granted to third parties using a proper license, or using a work contract.

Thanks, that could be useful ^^

> I think what we need here isn't really a change of the ownership, but
> rather a proper license, either a liberal public license (e.g. some CC
> variant), or a personal license for Walter that grants him all rights to
> use, distribute and relicense the logo.

I haven't been able to find a licence that grants the appropriate 
permissions because all the common public ones are about non-exclusive 
rights. If the graphic just had a CC license, other organisations would 
have just the same usage rights as Digital Mars. The graphic could have 
a more restrictive license and then Digital Mars could have additional 
rights granted separately, but that wouldn't really help. Crafting a new 
license is dangerous territory that I think is best avoided.

> Having said that, I'm pretty sure that he can still transfer the
> "copyright" according to U.S. laws to another person. It's just that he
> could then possibly still sue the person according to German laws. So a
> license would probably be the best bet.

That is my understanding too. There are no standard forms for this, it 
only requires a signed letter from the creator, and there isn't even a 
requirement for the transaction to be registered in any way (although it 
can). Because international law is so hand-wavy, such documents often 
include clauses that state what jurisdiction disputes are resolved under 
and even waivers for things like the right to sue, but to get things 
like that right, you need at least 2 lawyers.

> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so this is just my limited personal
> understanding of the matter.

I'm optimistic that this can all be resolved without having to get any 
lawyers involved, but it is a shame that the intersection of D-users and 
international-copyright-lawyers seems to have a cardinality of zero.

A...