[Fedora-legal-list] Fedora print magazine licensing: what should we be aware of?

[Paul]

Hi,

> <mchua> One of the things I want to ask about today is the licensing and 
> online availability of the magazine materials.
> <mchua> I'm not sure if we'll be republishing any materials we've 
> already got / will be having, but it seems pretty logical that we would 
> (for instance, publish the screeenshots tour, or feature profiles).
> <maxamillion> ah, that might be a question for fedora-legal mailing list
> <mchua> maxamillion: ooh, thanks for the suggestion. *asks fedora-legal*

Having been a former long term editor of a paper publication in the UK,
I can say this with some certainty : It depends.

The depends falls into a number of categories.

First are the rights the first publication was brought in on. A number
of paper mags take articles based on an original print, a reprint and
possibly as part of a compendium on a subject. It is very rare for
something to be made electronically (e.g. by PDF or HTML) unless it is
in a password protected area.

Second are the company rights. While it is a Fedora publication and
Fedora is backed by Red Hat, it does not follow that anything published
by RH is instantly OK legally for publication by Fedora (and vice
versa). Recently there was some discussion on the -devel list (IIRC)
over some of the Fedora artwork which was (c) Red Hat and if the
copyright attribution had to be changed. OK, not really mammoth in it's
size, but this is really the tip of an iceberg!

Third are the publishers rights. Does everything stay with Fedora
(and/or their successors in interest should the unthinkable occur), what
hold do the publishers have for reprint in their own magazines and what
is returned to the original authors (again, rights pending). This may
not seem much, but I personally have experienced the displeasure of
being screwed over in this way (I had something published years ago,
company went over, successor republished and made a pretty penny - I got
nothing due to the wording of the contract).

We then have the licence for web publication (if this happens). Is
everything (c) or released under the CC licence and if this is the case,
what is the users incentive to purchase the paper copy? Will
contributors want to ascribe their work to the CC licence is a heavier
issue.

Next up, confidentiality disclaimers - if I write something using Mono,
publish in Fedora User Monthly and the company I work for find out, who
does the buck stop with should they decide that what I've written is
confidential and the published article breaches something.

As for printing tour photos or features, they pose probably the least
problem. If it's a person, get them to sign a standard image release and
you're good. If it's a screenshot of a GPL/LGPL/MIT/CC/any FOSS happy
license product, no problems as long as the author gets a copy of the
article and the rights to publish sections in their own advertising
blurb.

Naming names (confidentiality II). Believe it or not, some
companies/individuals/programming groups don't want to be named as it
may compromise something else going on. Care must be taken here as
naming names can lead to big problems - the bigger the name, the more
they like taking action - and yes, I've seen heads roll on this one.

Copyright attribution (products) : Not really a problem unless it's a
prototype.

Can't think of much more and IANAL, but would certainly be interested in
editing such a fun publication!

TTFN

Paul

-- 
Sie können mich aufreizen und wirklich heiß machen!
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