Re: Licensing and copyright

[Jean-Michel POURE <jm poure com>]

> I was raising attention about other issues: the need for non-US residents
> to comply with the laws of the United-States, even after assignment.
> The issue at hand is assigning copyright, whether and how to do so.
>
> As you have pointed out, assigning copyright has no effect on other
> laws of various countries.  So let's not mix up these separate
> and unrelated issues.

With all my respect, I don't believe so.

Whenever the assigned copyrights are included into the FSF assets or just 
because they are a donation, they fall under American laws. 

As a result, in some cases, authors might be indirectly liable in front of 
American courts. The DMCA is just an example, but there are others like 
patents or even (hypothetical) physical injuries.

In some cases, both the FSF and the original author may have to show-up in 
court. This is the converse of protection.

People signing an assignment should be aware of the side-effects. At least the 
FSF assignment HOWTO should mention that the assigned softwares fall under 
all American laws.

Not only copyright laws.

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(of course I have other NOs against the concentration of copyrights into a 
single organisation, because sooner or later the US government will 
nationalize it, just to save the donators from some large software company 
seeking protection against freedom.

The GPL itself is enough. No need for any assignment.).