Re: Wiki Usage

[Rob Kendrick <lua-l@...>]

On Thu, 2006-10-12 at 09:30 +0100, David Jones wrote:
> On 12 Oct 2006, at 04:11, David Burgess wrote:
> 
> > Hi Wiki Maintainers,
> >
> > I wish to use the Wiki tutorials in a commercial product.
> >
> > 1) Can I do this? Does a donation to the Wiki support costs help?
> 
> My understanding of copyright is that in general you cannot.
> 
> Copyright is created as soon as a work is penned and in most laws  
> (eg, the UK) copyright can only be transferred by written agreement.   
> That means if I write something and add it to the Wiki then what I  
> wrote is still copyrighted by me.  This is true even though generally  
> people don't generally put copyright claims on their contributions,  
> and it's still true even though it's sometimes really hard to track  
> who wrote what.

This raises a complex issue: the site itself is hosted in the UK.  Does
that mean UK copyright law applies, given that's where the data is
stored and processed, or does the copyright law of the country where the
web browser is being run apply?

Law, as usual, is much too complex.  I suggest making the Lua authors
dictators of the entire planet - they appear to have good experience in
making things simple yet effective. :)

B.