On Jun 30, 2014, at 7:46 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> Where are the agreements to license the copyright of the Scheme reports 
> located?

The agreements were probably made starting in the early 1980s. There was 
certainly at least one conversation in which the behavior of participants would 
have legally constituted a copyright license. The agreements could have been 
made verbally or even nonverbally, without documentary evidence; that doesn't 
mean they weren't agreements. The lack of such evidence could in theory be 
exploited by an unscrupulous rightsholder. To prevail in court they would need 
to demonstrate that (a) they are a rightsholder and (b) the copying or 
performance was infringing on their copyright i.e. not licensed by them. Both 
(a) and (b) are long shots, (a) because we have poor records of authorship 
until recently and (b) because they'd have to explain why they contributed to a 
document that clearly says that its authors license copyright. In a civil suit 
I think they would also have to show personal harm. Consider the likelihood of 
the conjunction of all this relative to, say, being hit by a meteor.

The situation is how it is; there's nothing anyone can do about it. Why not 
give it a rest? If you want to talk about a different document, that's a 
different matter, and you can take up the matter with its authors. Or you can 
write your own document and do as you like.

Jonathan

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