[Sussex] Copyright - Left etc.

[Geoff Teale]

Angelo,

On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 10:18, Angelo Servini wrote:
> Surely anything a person writes, be it Code or Documentation or a book etc.
> is to be considered "Intellectual Property?".  Therefore, following from
> that - it can either be expressly owned by the author, or released for GPL
> inclusion as evidenced by the stance taken by Debian? (re: as pointed out by
> Geoff Teale).  In other words I own it, I can do what the damn I want with
> it!  Or is the law not logical?

It should be noted that you do not "release" anything by using the GPL. 
You simply allow other people certain rights in exchange for their
agreement to your license.  The copyright remains with the author (this
is unusually complex where there are multiple authors, but existing IP
Law would suggest that everyone else's work is derived from the original
author).

NOTE:
GPL is _not_ the same as Public Domain and the only process that can put
intellectual property into the public domain is the passing of time.
-- 
GJT 
gteale at cmedltd.com 
-- 
He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap.