In the course of our discussions on how to deal with copyright issues, we have come across points where we were unsure how to proceed. These were not simply a matter of looking in the right reference or law-book for an answer; rather, these were instances where one situation is in flux and require judgement. As Aaron pointed out, only an expert observer with years of experience monitoring trends is likely to be able to make reliable predictions on how courts are likely to decide in grey cases of the law or how measures are likely to work in practise. To this end, I have started this page as a place to list some of these question so that, when an occasion to speak to such an expert presents itself, we will know what to ask.
- To what extent can an organization hosting a CBPP project assign
responsibility by means of user agreements such as the one we have proposed? If the answer to this question is positive, then are there changes that could be made to our agreement to make it more effective?
- What constitutes due diligence nowadays? This being a rather wide
question, we limit ourselves to cases which have arisen, or are likely to come up, in what we are doing.
- To what extent would a contributor’s representation that a work was
original except where indicated otherwise and that proper permissions had been obtained where required shield those who use the work from liability for infringement should it turn out that the these representations were incorrect and that the work did, in fact, infringe on copyright. If someone releases under free license a work which they had no right to so release, to what extent might someone else who used this work in good faith under the terms of the license be liable? (Of course, this ties in with the last question — when using a work released under a free license, to what extent (if any) is one obliged or expected to check that the work was fit to be released under these terms in the first place?)
- In the case of texts written by more than one author, to what
extent might one authour be held liable for infringement due solely to the other author’s contribution if it could be clearly shown (by means of version histories) who contributed what?
- Minor concrete point: do we need to list all the authors of PM on
the copyright notice? Are usernames OK, or are real names required? (Etc.)