Intro to authors rights and licensing Zdenk abokrtsk

Intro to authors' rights and licensing Zdeněk Žabokrtský Disclaimer: the author of the following slides in not a lawyer and therefore the claims might be highly simplified

Authors' rights A set of rights granted to a creator of an intellectual work (poem, drawing, sculpture. . . software) Originated in 18 th century, in order to protect his/her intellectual property Governed by the territorial jurisdiction (local law systém) Different systems in (continental) Europe and USA

Motivation As potential creators of NLP software and/or data, you should be aware of your rights and you should be able provide users with a reasonble license.

Legal system of the Czech Republic Hierarchy of the sources of law - (1) constitution and constitutional laws (2) international treaties (3) statutes adopted by the Parliament (4) derived legislation (by the government and ministries) (5) legislative acts of self-regulated entities (territorial and professional) lower layers of the pyramid have to be compatible with the higher ones

Authors' rights in the legal system of the Czech Republic (1) constitution and constitutional law • Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms “Práva k výsledkům tvůrčí duševní činnosti jsou chráněna zákonem” (2) international treaties e. g. Berne Convention (1886, Czechoslovakia since 1921) (3) statutes adopted by the Parliament • generally in Civil code (40/1964 Sb. ) • in detail in Authors' law (121/2000 Sb. ) (4) derived legislation (by the government and ministries) (5) legislative acts of self-regulated entities (territorial and professional)

Dualistic system of authors' rights Two distinct components of authors' rights – Moral rights • Cannot be transfered to another person • The right to be identified as the author • The right to object to any distortion or mutilation or the work • It is always a person who keeps the moral rights – Economic rights • Can be transfered, as any other property • Limited in time • Allow the to profit financially from the publication, distribution, adaptation. . . • It can be an institution (e. g. your employer) who keeps the economic rights.

Authors' rights You possess the rights (both moral and economic) since the moment you create the artifact! No registration is necessary. No publication is necessary. However, your name should be attached to the artifact in a usual way, so that you can claim the right.

Copyright notice Copyright © Zdeněk Žabokrtský 2011 Relevant e. g. in the US jurisdiction In the Czech Republic it is nothing more than one of the usual ways of mentioning the author's name. Even if the term “copyright” is frequently used, it is absolutely irrelevant in the Czech legal system! Notices such as “No part of this book can be reproduced” are irrelevant too. The Authors' law defines several kinds of free usage (such as usage for own personal needs) and the author/publisher has no right to contradict the law.

License agreement A document by which you transfer (a part of) your economic rights related to a certain artifact to someone else. Examples: – you may sign a license agreement with a publisher and give him exclusive right for publishing your book. – You may attach a license to your program and allow anyone to do anything with the program. The license should clearly define – – Who are the agreeing entities What types of usage is allowed to the licensor Whether it is exclusive or non-exclusive What is the reward for the author

Licenses You may construct the license agreement from scratch (then be careful, read the law, possibly consult a lawyer) If you want to transfer the usage rights to anonymous users, you may use one of many available generic licenses such as • GNU General Public License • Perl Artistic License • Creative Commons set of licenses – Advantage: • Developed by experts to facilitate fast spread and legally correct usage in many countries – Disadvantage: • No financial reward, even no registration of users. . .

Free software movement 4 freedoms – the freedom to • use the software for any purpose • share the software with your friends and neighbors • to change the software to suit your needs • to share the changes you make usual ways of restricting such freedoms – publishing binaries without source codes – restrictive licenses

GNU General Public License any licensee who adheres to GPL – is given permission to modify, copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version – can charge a fee for such service – must accompany binaries with source codes, if the binaries are distributed (which is not obligatory) – most important: may not impose further restrictions on the rights granted by GPL legal mechanism based on “copyleft”

GNU GPL - “Copyleft” Makes use of standard authors' rights: – The original work is protected by author's rights (is copyrighted). – Therefore the licensee can use the work only within the terms defined by the author. – If the author says in the license that the work and its derivations can be further distributed only under the very same license, the licensee has to follow it. Copyleft applies only if the work is redistributed, otherwise the licensee if free. Criticism: – “viral” nature of GPL – Troubles with commercialization

GNU GPL cont. Developed by Free Software Foundation for computer programs For libraries you can use less restrictive LGPL (Lesser GPL) by FSF For documents you can use GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License) by FSF The author may decide to distribute a GPLed work also under one or more other licenses. Typically, Perl modules on CPAN are double-licensed: GPL + Perl Artistic License Then the licensee can decide which license fits better for his/her needs.

Perl Artistic License less restrictive than GPL keeping the same license is not forced for derived works however, the copyright holder keeps some control over the development of the package: modified versions of a package must be clearly distinguished from its Standard version The package can be used in commercial distributions

Creative Commons A set of four public licenses Each of them based on a subset of four elements: – Attribution (by) – you (as a licensee) can copy/distribute/display/perform/remix. . . the copyrighted work as long as you give credit to the author – Non. Commercial (nc) – you can … only for noncommercial purposes only – Share. Alike (sa) – you can … as long is the derivative work is distributed under the same license as the original one – No. Derivatives (nd) – you cannot modify the work Given that all CC licenses cover Attribution and Share. Alike and No. Derivatives are in conflict, there are only 6 reasonable combinations: – by, by-nd, by-nc, by-nc-sa, by-sa

Creative Commons, cont. All CC licenses are non-exclusive (rather the contrary: whoever from general public can use the work under the license you choose, without any registration) Two versions of license texts: – The Legal Code – the actual license, readable by lawyers – The Commons Deed – summary, readable by humans Not recommended for software