Tuesday, February 19, 2013

"Intellectual Property" Update

I used to publish KN@PPSTER under a Creative Commons "Attribution" license. I've decided to change that:



CC0

To the extent possible under law,
Thomas L. Knapp
has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to
KN@PPSTER

This work is published from:
United States

Note well the "to the extent possible under law" part -- I'm waiving all "intellectual property" rights [sic] in KN@PPSTER which I am characterized by the current political regime as possessing, and that waiver is retroactive to the entire existing content of the blog all the way back to its birth in 2004, but I obviously can't waive on behalf of others whom I quote, cite, link to, feature, etc. So if you're not sure something is entirely by me, and therefore entirely unencumbered, you might want to check before using it.

ADDENDA:

It's my understanding that some "intellectual property" analysts consider the forgoing license to possibly be unsound -- I don't claim to understand exactly why, but the gravamen of their arguments seems to be that the "rights" involved are somehow inalienable such that if I decided to renege on the waivers above in the future, a court would uphold my ownership claims in spite of said waivers.

I'm not really sure what to do about that. I mean, how can I account for the possibility that, if I turn out to be a liar, some judge or other political authority won't have the common fucking sense to say "hey, you gave all that up, it's right there in black and white, go pound sand," or else might be susceptible to e.g. bribery or whatever on my part?

To strengthen, as much as possible, the case of anyone who might become entangled in such a future theoretical claim of non-waiver on my part, I hereby incorporate three three addenda into this post;

Addendum A: The forgoing waiver is intended to apply to all material  published  at KN@PPSTER (root URL knappster.blogspot.com and all subsidiary URLs) from September 24th, 2004 until now, and is explicitly intended to be held by any arbitrator, mediator or political government body to be irrevocable and effective in perpetuity. It is also intended to apply to, and to be held by any arbitrator, mediator or political government body to apply to, any material published at KN@PPSTER in the future, up to such point in time as an equally formal notice is published at KN@PPSTER which explicitly withdraws said waivers for material to be published at KN@PPSTER subsequent to said notice.

Addendum B is hereby incorporated by reference [here's one link -- here's another] as explanatory material for the use of any future arbitrator, mediator or political government body regarding my attitudes and intentions with respect to the forgoing waivers. I aver that I heartily agree with the sentiments expressed therein.

Addendum C is my statement, here freely given, that I concur, with respect to all material covered by the forgoing waivers, with the sentiment of Woody Guthrie as reflected in a written statement he placed in a songbook he distributed in the 1930s: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

If all of the above is not enough to convince you that you can copy my stuff without fear of legal entanglements ... well, you're hopeless, and you can feel free to send me a check and a release to sign before copying my stuff, if it makes you feel better.

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