Demon license? (copyright myths)

[Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC]

On Jul 20, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Bob Johnson wrote:

> IANAL either, but in general, a copyright holder has the right to  
> control
> derivative works as well.  You can't publish pictures of Mickey  
> Mouse without
> permission of Disney, even if you drew the pictures yourself, and you
> (probably) can't publish images of Beastie without Kirk McKusick's
> permission.  The fact that he is lenient in enforcing his rights  
> does not
> mean that he doesn't have them.
>
> If someone manages to come up with a daemon image that is obviously  
> NOT
> Beastie, then they won't have to worry about McKusick's copyright,  
> but since
> he is so lenient in granting usage, why bother?
>
> http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
>
> - Bob


This would be true if he had invented or come up with Beastie first.   
Is that how it happened?  I was under the impression that he just  
came up with the most loved form but that previously somewhat similar  
images  had been used for unix/bsd etc.  He still has the right to  
derivatives of his beastie but I would suspect that not-so-similar  
versions would be OK. But again, IANAL and am not familiar with whole  
history

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Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC
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