RE: Standing on multi-authored works

--- Lawrence Rosen <[email protected]> wrote:
> If that's the holding, then it seems to me the case
> applies to a situation
> where the contributor wants to rely on the
> collective work copyright
> registration rather than get his own. The author of
> the collective work can
> protect his collective work regardless of whether
> the underlying
> contributions are registered. 

I believe you are correct.  Thank you for catching me
on that. I read from the case: 
"we hold that unless the copyright owner of a
collective work also owns all the rights in a
constituent part, a collective work registration will
not extend to a constituent part", 
and didn't adequately think it through before posting.
 I apologize to Mr. Behlendorf for the erroneous
response.

So why does the FSF require assignments?  Are they
concerned about the situation where the only evidence
of infringement concerns a contribution, rather than
the whole?  

Or are they concerned about a court treating the
software as a joint work rather than a collective
work? In the joint work context, I believe there is at
least some risk of the other authors being
indispensable parties, although I hesitate to mention
specific cases.

> After all, consider
> the edge case where a
> collective work contains only public domain
> contributions....

Again, you’re absolutely right.  That makes me wonder
about an edge case in which a compilation consists of
contributions which are not independent works.  E.g. a
story made of a series of single words, each chosen by
a separate contributor.
 





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