[LEAPSECS] private smear goes public

[Warner Losh]

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 3:17 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
> --------
> In message <B400409C-0655-4C51-83B1-5CF3B19D60F6 at develooper.com>, =?utf-8?Q?Ask_Bj=C3=B8rn_Hansen?= writes:
>
>>> It does not have any copyright claims on it I can identify. Not
>>> do the other related files, like
>>> https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eoppc/bul/bulc/Leap_Second_History.dat.
>>>
>>> Seems to me any copyright claim would defeat the IERS purposes.
>>> Seems to me if there were such it would have to be stated in Bulletin
>>> C itself.
>>
>>You don't need to "claim copyright" to have it. You need to license to allow others to use your work.
>
> While that is true, there are a lot of fine print.
>
> First, licensing can and often is implied.
>
> This is generally the case if you distribute your own work widely
> with no indication of intention to enforce your copyright later on.
> If you want to assert and defend your "mercantile rights", you need
> to state that up front, with a big fat copyright notice, from day 1.
>
> Second, there are exceptions for fair use, which almost certainly
> applies here, since leap seconds have legal force in most countries.
>
> The only relevant situation where copyright matters for Bulletin-C,
> is if somebody replaces IERS name&address with something else.
>
> That would be an attack on IERS's (directors) "ideal right" to
> be associated with the work as its creator.
>
> The ideal rights does not require marking, because nobody who
> violates them can possible be in doubt that they didn't create
> the work themselves [1].
>
> So as long as you reproduce Bulletin C verbatim, there can not
> and will not be any copyright issues[2].
>
> Poul-Henning
>
> [1] This is where the trouble starts with music:  There are
> only so many guitar-riffs, and parallel creation is bound
> to happen.  Ask Led Zeppelin for details.
>
> [2] I wonder if anybody bothered to actually ask IERS director, or
> if this is just the usual navel-gazing and circle-jerking from
> militant FOSS license-separatists ?

It's also all boilerplate. There's no creative content, so it's quite
likely it wouldn't even qualify for copyright protection. You can't
copyright facts, and that's all that differs from report to report.

Warner