License for a LO Calc document?

users
#1

Hi,

how can ( if can ) one protect her/his LO Calc document ( spreadsheet ) with
a copyright license?

What is the preferred way to eg.: share a Calc document, but protecting it
from expropriate?

Or is it sufficient to protect a Calc document with a password?

#2

You set a password for opening a document and another for editting. You need to set them when saving the document. For a limited distribution document this is probably adequate. You then need to distribute the passwords. In theory you know who has access and thus could be the source of any misuse.

If you want the document to be readily accessible, read-only there is a risk for someone to expropriate your work.

#3

Where will you be sharing it? If you have no plan of sharing it - copyrighting seems unnecessary. If it's a book or something you are sharing - you should file a copyright with your copyright office as nothing we can do will legally protect your documents. If you are sharing it just to individuals you might want to ask them to sign something saying they won't profit from it or share it further. I suggest talking to a copyright attorney if it's something valuable.

Protecting with a password has nothing to do with copyrighting.

Best,
Joel

#4

If you take a printed copy and a CD copy of the spreadsheet. Add all of the documentation about how, and when you made it. Then mail it to yourself. Make sure it is sealed very, very well, so no one could say you placed the stuff in the envelope at a later date.

When you get it in the mail, do not open it. Give it to your lawyer inside another envelope with the same printer and CD copies and all the documentation.

The sealed mailing will show a postal date. That gives you a time line showing you developed it as late as such and such date. Giving it to a lawyer, or having the lawyer mail it to you can help with some later legal issues that may come up. Make sure you get input from a lawyer as soon in the process as possible.

That is the cheapest way of proving you came up with the "idea". But, you need more, I think. You want people to use the sheet but not steal the code, right?

That is a different issue.

Copyright and licensing a "set of code" can be different in many ways on how to protect you rights. You should do the "simple protection" of the mailing to start and then get involved with a copyright lawyer. Next is the "securing" of you spread sheet "codes" and macros. That could be done in some cases with password protections to stop people from editing, or listing out, all of the cell contents and the macros involved. Some type of "execute only" option is needed. Also, having the only the cells that need to be changeable be able to be edited is a good idea.

How a spread sheet can do all of this.?. . . Well, I would have made a program and compiled it and had it run just like the spreadsheet would for showing the rows and columns. That is one of the only ways I could make sure my work not get its internal "coding" available for others to read, copy, etc..

Now the question a lawyer would ask. . . What are you going to licensing and for want purpose. Are you going to allow users to download the file and require them to pay you for a key or password to allow it to run? Or are you going to license the intellectual property of the coding of the cells and macros? Will you hold the copyright or the "code base" and allow others to use it or are you wanting to keep others from seeing what you have created but have a way to use it.

There are a lot of things you need to ask yourself and these are just some of the things I remember a lawyer asking me when I created an item I wanted to protect as my intellectual property and stop others from claiming it was theirs.

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
The sealed envelope trick to prove "prior art" (or something) is pretty neat.  I think it does depend on the laws of your country though.  I think it might be valid in the Uk but it might be worth looking up "Creative Commons" to see a more technical and modern approach
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

If you take a printed copy and a CD copy of the spreadsheet. Add all of
the documentation about how, and when you made it. Then mail it to
yourself. Make sure it is sealed very, very well, so no one could say
you placed the stuff in the envelope at a later date.

What you describing is usually referred to as _The Poor Man's
Copyright_. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html is
description of its validity in the United States.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp describes issues with using it
in the United States.

http://www.copyrightauthority.com/poor-mans-copyright/ provides examples
of why it usually is not accepted as proof of copyright.

mailing to start and then get involved with a copyright lawyer.

If the idea is to prove dates, then have somebody other than your lawyer
notarise each page, and give the resulting notarised on each page
document to your attorney. But this only works in countries in which
there is no central registration, _and_ where such registration is not
mandatory for pursuit of damages in a court of law.

jonathon

#7

Trying to unsubscribe but getting no where?

But getting this!
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Help.

Chris

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
Nice answer!  Good to have links in there too.  I really thought that the poor-man's copyright was a legit way but now it';s obvious that it couldn't be.  It's waaay too easy to fake it.

That was interesting about the Berne Convention.  Next time the issue crops up i might look into that more.

My boss was asking about how to apply copyright to something a couple weeks ago so i just pointed him to "Creative Commons" without really knowing what i was doing.

Thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#9

Hi Joel,

I have plan to sharing it say on the Internet, or say on a flesh drive that
I bring in to the school where I'm working.

I want to use Creative Commons License ( CC ).

In this case I will put the License for myLO Calc Spreadsheet file on my
homepage
( one can see how to do that here: http://creativecommons.org/choose/
<http://creativecommons.org/choose/> ) ,

but I think I should to give some information for the future users of the
spreadsheet about CC License for this work.

Can I give this information in the Calc spreadsheet itself?

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
Nice answer! Good to have links in there too. I really thought that the poor-man's copyright was a legit way but now it';s obvious that it couldn't be. It's waaay too easy to fake it.

Under US law a copyright exist once the work is fixed. Registration allows one to pursue various legal remedies more easily.

That was interesting about the Berne Convention. Next time the issue crops up i might look into that more.
My boss was asking about how to apply copyright to something a couple weeks ago so i just pointed him to "Creative Commons" without really knowing what i was doing.
Thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Creative Commons and the various FOSS licenses are based on copyright. What they do is explicitly grant the user specific rights under copyright law (eg the right to make copies, availability of the source code). These do not invalidate copyright but exploit the fact the copyright owner actual has the right to issue a work under any terms they choose from essentially public domain to "all-rights reserved" of the traditional copyright notification.

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
There are many options depending on how quickly and easily you want people to see it.

Once you have chosen which license you want to use there is a logo that you can copy&paste directly onto the page.  Then right-click on the logo to get the "Picture" dialogue box and hunt for the place to put a url address.  Copy&paste the link to the CreativeCommons page about the license you have chosen.

For example the link to the "CC by SA" license (as used for the Published Guides) is
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_GB
errr, that's the English (GB) page for it anyway (obviously).

Tbh i hadn't realised that CC did a lot of different languages.  I'd kinda assumed they just wrote it up in just Eng (US) so that was a nice surprise :slight_smile:

If you do it that way and then Export to Pdf when people see the little logo they find they can click on it and that opens a new tab in their web-browser or opens their default web-browser at the right page.

You could, either in addition to that or instead of doing it, just add the url into the document so that people can read the url before clicking on it.

Another way might be to use
File - Properties - Description
to hide the links or/and full description in there.  Just copy&pasted from the Creative Commons page perhaps?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: