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O'Reilly Pushing Founder's Copyright System

Posted by chrisd on from the creative-commons-good dept.

alansz writes "The O'Reilly and Associates Open Books Project has been around for a while, and I've just received a letter from Tim about the next step" Read on if you are interested in the creative commons, and how O'Reilly authors are being asked to take part. Alansz continues, "ORA authors are being encouraged to allow ORA to self-limit their copyright to the Founders' Copyright (14 years with one 14-year extension possible), and to allow ORA to distribute their out-of-print (or post-Founder's Copyright) books to the public using the Creative Commons Attribution license (you can freely copy and distribute the work and derivatives, as long as you attribute the work to the author and ORA). Author agreement is required in order for ORA to transfer rights to Creative Commons.

The letter included a handy FAQ about author options (allow assignment to Creative Commons, stick with the usual maximum copyright deal, or have three months to try to find another publisher when the book goes out-of-print and allow assignment to CC if you don't). The letter also notes that different editions of books count as different works, so your latest edition can still be selling commercially and earlier editions can be released as open books.

(For my out-of-print ORA book, I'm going to allow them to assign the rights to CC and make it freely available. It's great to see a publisher thinking about copyright this way, but it's no more than I'd expect from the good folks at ORA.)"

13 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Why George Bush? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The population of the US is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the US leads the world by miles. You would think that a country with such resources, and such a field of talent, would be able to elect a leader of the highest quality. Yet, what has happened? At the end of all the primaries and party caucuses, the speeches and the televised debates, after a year or more of non-stop electioneering bustle, who, out of that entire population of 300 million, emerges at the top of the heap? George Bush.

    My American friends, you know I love your country, how have we come to this? Yes, yes, Bush isn't quite as stupid as he sounds, and heaven knows he can't be as stupid as he looks. I know most of you didn't vote for him anyway, but that is my point. Forgive my presumption, but could it just be that there is something a teeny bit wrong with that famous constitution of yours? Of course this particular election was unusual in being a dead heat. Elections don't usually need a tie-breaker, something equivalent to the toss of a coin. Al Gore's majority in the country, reinforcing his majority in the electoral college but for dead-heated Florida, would have led a just and unbiased supreme court to award him the tie-breaker. So yes, Bush came to power by a kind of coup d'état. But it was a constitutional coup d'état. The system has been asking for trouble for years.

    1. Re:Why George Bush? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      It is bizarre reading these posts and seeing people quote as fact the propaganda of the American government and media.
      That the American public is completely unfamiliar with the modern history of Iraq and with their own government's history of creating instablity in the region is quite shocking. I think it's the reason why Americans swallow whole the misinformation and outright lies spoon fed to them by their media and politicians.
      After WWII and continuing today, the UN mandates the teaching of the Nazi era to all German school children at all levels, in an attempt to ensure that Germans cannot hide from the legacy of the last world conflict.
      I think that a similar UN mandate is warranted here. The uninformed/misinformed American public are creating real difficulties for the world by supporting extremist politicians in their government. I would like to see the U.N. step in and make an effort to teach American school children some basic facts about life outside the U.S. and the long history of America's damage to the wider world. Such an effort might go a long way towards helping Americans learn to behave in a civilised manner both as individuals and as a society.
      American media (which we see here in Britain) is absolutely shocking. The only examples of blatant propaganda that come even close to it are Stalinst-era Soviet broadcasts and the works of Goebels in Nazi Germany.
      It would be too much to ask that the power structures behind the American media begin to show Americans the truth, but perhaps with a U.N. education effort for young Americans they will become less susceptible to the lies that they are force-fed and gleefully regurgitate here in such a repugnantly belligerent manner.

    2. Re:Why George Bush? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      We cut all civics classes so we could teach kids to be tolerant of homos.

    3. Re:Why George Bush? by jacquesm · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      all trolls should move to IraqOpinions so the rest of us can have a decent day here on /.

      --
      MP3 Search Engine
    4. Re:Why George Bush? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      I think it has to do with the majority of Americans identifying themselves with George Bush rather than an intellectual, Nobel-prize-winning statesman. Most Americans like George Bush a lot.

      The problem I think, has more to do with the culture of America, rather than the Constitution. This is the other edge of the democratic sword: majority rules. If the majority of people in America are ignorant, you get an ignorant leader.

    5. Re:Why George Bush? by jeanmipopov · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      No, there is a better place to troll about Irak. Please consider visit the site
      www.fuckfrance.com

  2. Fun! by B3ryllium · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    But I want to troll for Confuzzled hits.

  3. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Bill O'Rielly thinks Ann Coulter is sexy!!!!

  4. wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    you are my hero!!!

  5. My Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Re: two stories ago

    This + This = Open Source IE

  6. Re:Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    mod parent's sig UP!

  7. Best War news ever .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic




    The secret video of GW Bush that was released by mistake !!!


  8. Re:It's things like this by Michael+Ross · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How can SirSlud's financially unsound suggestion ("Imagine if O'Reilly books are free. ... Economically speaking, this *could* make O'Reilly more in the long run.") get mod-ed up to "Score:5, Insightful", while NoCoward's funny rejoinder only merits a "Score:1"?!