released under the GFDL.[1] In addition, the GFDL mandates attribution[2] and the inclusion of an express copyright notice,[3] requires modified works to adopt a new title,[4] forbids certain other modifications of the licensed content,[5] and empowers authors also to forbid modifications of designated sections of the work, thus requiring the specified portions of the work to be reproduced verbatim in any subsequent version.[6] Finally, like many other open-content licenses, the GFDL includes provisions that essentially require users to be informed about their rights. Any derivatives of GFDL-licensed content must include an express public notice alerting users to their GFDL- based permissions to reuse the work[7] and a copy of the GFDL.[8]
Like the GPL, the GFDL includes what the license labels a “termination” clause, providing in essence that a licensee who breaches the conditions of the license may no longer exercise the rights granted.[9] Absent default by the licensee, the GFDL expressly provides a license “unlimited in duration[.]”[10] The GFDL does not declare itself to be “irrevocable,” as the GPL does.[11] Nevertheless, the way the GFDL is used in practice may convey the impression that the license cannot be terminated.[12]
- ↑ Id. § 4.
- ↑ Id. § 4(B).
- ↑ Id. § 4(E).
- ↑ Id. § 4(A).
- ↑ Id. § 4(D) (forbidding modification of prior versions’ copyright notices), (G) (requiring verbatim reproduction of lists of invariant sections and required cover texts), (I)–(K) (requiring preservation of other identified sections as they appeared in prior versions of the work), (O) (requiring preservation of any disclaimers of warranty that appeared in prior versions of the work).
- ↑ Id. §§ 1 (defining “Invariant Sections”), 4(L) (requiring that modified versions of the work “[p]reserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles.”). These provisions limit the scope of derivative works that may be produced from GFDL-licensed content by specifying that certain portions of the original work must be reproduced without modification in any derivative works. For an explanation of the limited reach this provision was intended to have, see Stallman, supra note 47, at 68; see also GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 1 (explaining, in definition of “Secondary Section,” that the portions of documents authors are allowed to designate as “invariant” must “contain[ ] nothing that could fall directly within th[e] overall subject” matter addressed by the document’s text).
- ↑ GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 4(F).
- ↑ Id. § 4(H). For a suggestion that this requirement may inhibit widespread adoption of the GFDL, see Niva Elkin-Koren, What Contracts Cannot Do: The Limits of Private Ordering in Facilitating a Creative Commons, 74 Fordham L. Rev. 375, 413 (2005).
- ↑ GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 9 (“You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.”). The 2008 revisions of the GFDL added new language to the “termination” provision, adapted from language introduced in the GPLv3, permitting users of GFDL-licensed content to cure their default via specified means and reinstate the rights granted under the license. Compare id., with GFDLv1.2, supra note 102, § 9. See also supra notes 72–73 and accompanying text.
- ↑ GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 1.
- ↑ See supra note 74 and accompanying text.
- ↑ See infra note 147 and accompanying text.
