🚀 go-pugleaf

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> No. You're barking up the wrong tree. "Transfer of ownership" is
> unimportant and irrelevant in all cases, so it doesn't matter if the
> GPL does or doesn't apply given transfer of ownership.

Actually, I agree with this completely.  It is others on this thread who seem
to believe that transfer of ownership is somehow essential to distribution. 
It isn't.

> Likewise, "fair use" may override that
> license. Signing has nothing to do with that.

No, fair use clearly applies to the owner of a copy, and copyright law clearly
allows copies to be licensed rather than sold.  The only real question with
these licenses comes into play when the alleged license is a shrink wrap
"executed" after the sale has already occurred.  There is nothing illegal or
unenforcable about a license rather than sale transaction.

> Well, it doesn't mean anything, because the image is a facsimile
> of 600+ year old documents. Wishing doesn't make it so.

Perhaps.  As far as I know this is unsettled law.  An independent copyright
attaches to a photograph or other image, regardless of the copyright status of
the subject matter, if the image itself contains the necessary elements of
originality.  Such things as composition, exposure, choice of equipment,
processing etc. could possibly be sufficient in the case of an image of an old
document.