PE> What I basically want to do is enable people to use a work
PE> as though they had written it themselves.

RS> Yeah, I understood what your were trying to do fine, it just
RS> wont work. Because the bits you DIDNT write are not YOUR work,
RS> so you can NEVER get to own them like that, get to claim them
RS> as your own for the purposes of copyright. Coz they aint YOUR work.

PE> I can sell the copyright to someone else, and then they own
PE> it just like they had written it.

Yes.

PE> So why can't I sell it to lots of people, and then they
PE> all have copyright over it (joint), or something like that,

Coz the copyright law doesnt work like that, thats why.

PE> so that they, and only they, have complete rights over any derived work?

And it certainly doesnt help with your attempt to add a couple
of words to something that has had its copyright expire, and you
attempting to claim the whole thing as your own. You cant do that,
even if the creator of the original work had say sold the copyright
to someone else. Doesnt affect the law as far as your attempt at all.

RS> In your case the question really is quite complicated. If for
RS> example your code was doing something quite fancy, say PKT->QWK
RS> conversion, and just had a bug in it which didnt handle say a
RS> dud date properly, you cant take PD code, fix that date bug,
RS> claim you own the whole of the code as your own just because
RS> you fix the bug and stick a copyright notice on it. Copyright
RS> law doesnt let you do that basically.

PE> I think it is important to not have anything at all that would
PE> inhibit a commercial enterprise from using code that I have written. 

Yes, but there is basically no way that they can have copyright
over the WHOLE of YOUR work, by the act of adding something to it.
The copyright law does not allow that. No matter how awkward that
might be for what you want to do.

You could tho copyright YOUR work, and assign the copyright to them.
The could certainly then add some more and have copyright over the
whole. But then thats a problem for someone else wanting to use the
original.

Or they could just use your code, and NOT have copyright to YOUR code.
Just their own additions.

PE> If they aren't allowed to spend their own money fixing bugs in my code

No one said they arent allowed to, just that doing that doesnt
give them copyright rights over the WHOLE work, your code too.

PE> and then owning the new version, they may well think it's better
PE> to write their own.

They may indeed, and thats essentially the choice they have to make,
and one very real problem with with public domain code. If you use
it, you dont get copyright to the WHOLE thing. No matter how much
you might like that, the law does not allow it.

PE> It is this that I am trying to avoid, and I thought making it
PE> PD enabled this.

Nope, it doesnt, Public Domain, means what it says, its in the Public
Domain, and thats a different thing to being copyrighted. And if you
think about it for a moment, your proposition doesnt make sense at its
most fundamental, because if you could really do what you want to do,
public domain would be meaningless. Whatever the original author of the
codes intention was with the public domain code could be nullified by
the act changing two words and its not longer public domain. The law
doesnt allow that. For that damned good reason.

PE> Even if they distribute the source code to their product,
PE> as some graphics libraries do.

RS> Well, thats a whole nuvver can of worms, stuff which is copyrighted
RS> but you are free to use.

PE> No, I didn't mean that.  I meant, e.g. that I purchased MCOMM,
PE> a comms library.  It comes with source.  It is copyrighted by
PE> the author.  If he had some modified PD source mixed up in that,
PE> I would want his copyright notice to remain valid.

Well you cant, the law doesnt allow what you would like.

--- PQWK202