svn commit: r314905 - in head/sys: compat/linuxkpi/common/include/linux compat/linuxkpi/common/src conf modules/linuxkpi

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Rodney W. Grimes
> <freebsd at pdx.rh.cn85.dnsmgr.net> wrote:
...

> > Though widly seen, often miss understood, this modification technically under the copyright
> > law can be used to assert that you have claimed copyright on the 2014 work more than one
> > year after original poublication, hence the work done in 2014 now falls under different
> > parts of the US copyright law.  A prefered form of the above dates would be
> > 2013-2014, 2017.  Do not assert copyrights for years in which no new material was
> > published.   Publishes is defferent than written.  Do not interpret these dates
> > as the dates written.
> >
> > Effect of this type of error:
> >   According to the U.S. Copyright Act, if the year date [in the copyright
> >   notice] is more than one year later than the year in which publication first
> >   occurred, the work is considered to have been published without any notice.
> 
> This is incorrect legal advice. Please don't give out legal advice if
> you are not a lawyer.
Which your now doing also ?

> 
> The copyright office's own page says you need only list the first year
> of publication on the list of years[*].
This is a circ pub, and not the actual laws or trial cases, its good
information, but not complete information.  Your reference to
"list of years" appears no place, that I can find, in this
document.  "list of" does not appear in this document.  Some
lawyers well even recommend, and given we have a VCS, you clearly
mark which parts are copyright for which years.

> The project's guidance to
> committers for the last 20 years is to do a range of copyright dates.
The projects guidance has wrongly been changed then, as I have
always tried to make sure the A, B, C-D information was applied
correctly.  I do have a fairly good understanding of copyright law.

Can you point to any "published" project guidance on this manner?

> If you'd believe this is in error, please work with the FreeBSD
> Foundation to get their lawyers to offer updated guidance.

I was actually already considering asking the Foundation to consult
an attorney and have a published policy on this issue, with examples
and such of when to do which.

> Warner
> 
> [*] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf

If your gona site aite a reference to a publication it
is usually best to assert what part of it your referncing.
I had already ready circ03.pdf and several other legal
reference sources before making my assertion(s).

2. The year of first publication. If the work is a derivative 
work or a compilation incorporating previously published 
material, the year date of first publication of the derivative 
work or compilation is sufficient. Examples of derivative 
works are translations or dramatizations; an example of 
a compilation is an anthology. The year may be omitted
when a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with 
accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or 
on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, 
or useful articles

I would consider this a dervied work and hence needs an
assertion of a correct date on that derivation.  So do many
other attorneys.

Also that clause 2 is one of the only parts in the circ that
actually comes out of law text.

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org