RE: Mutal copyright question

From: John P. McNeill <johnmcn[_at_]bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:50:00 -0400


Rather than use an assignment you can use a license.

-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property [mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Fred Dirkse - OIC Group, Inc. Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 6:21 PM To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property Subject: [CNI-(C)] Mutal copyright question

Greetings all.
My company has a software program we have released open source. Any open source contributions we receive that are to be integrated into the main system, we require copyright be assigned to us. There are several developers who have good contributions to offer, but do not want to assign copyright to us because they have internal or otherwise proprietary usage for the same code and don't want to "give up" rights to it. The only reason I want copyright is to eliminate any future issues regarding their contributions to the software...I could care less what they do with the exact same code on their end...I just need to know that I have full control of it in my system.
I proposed that they simply assign us copyright for what they give us, and they keep the same code and copyright also. This has raised some questions regarding the full legalities of this. Basically the question is:
If I write a piece of code, can I give that code to someone else along with copyright on it for them to do whatever they please with, as well as maintain copyright on it myself and do whatever I please with it?

Thank you for your input.

Fred

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