Open source rocket development Is it possible to collaborate openly (publicly) world-wide with others to develop a suborbital/orbital capable rocket/launcher and to publish the resulting know-how (both software and hardware)? There are laws that restricts exports of arms (ITAR in US, similar in EU) which may apply to publishing such info. It looks like ITAR does not care about information that is publicly available (ITAR paragraph 120.11) but I am not sure if I understand it correctly. Can someone confirm? These questions may be related: ITAR tag on Space Exploration SE Trade restrictions on open source software Do international sanctions have an impact on Open Source Software? Why can't I ask my question about amateur space projects and development?
It’s perfectly legal for private individuals and organisations to develop rockets Just like it’s legal for them to develop aircraft or motor vehicles. Space X, Boeing and BMW are all private organisations. While any of these could be used as weapon delivery systems, they aren’t weapons. There are a bunch of laws and regulations that they must comply with, but that’s true of any business.
Ideas (methods of playing, game mechanics, strategy, goals) cannot be protected by copyright. But any part of a creative work can. So, no copying of drawings, patterns, images, sounds, or the element. I suppose copying the software code is not an issue here, but it can, obviously, also not be copied. And nothing in your game can look like someone's else trademark.
Bulgaria is one of many countries in which intellectual property can be protected with a single international patent filing, in lieu of a Bulgarian specific filing. In generally, you should assume that any patented idea likely to have international application, such as Internet based software, which is patented in the U.S. is also the subject of international patent protection, unless you specifically know that this is not the case. Virtually all patent lawyers know how to make this filing and most would recommend doing so in this case. So, yes, it is something you should worry about, and the better practice, by far, would be to obtain permission from the patent owner if the app is likely to have any meaningful commercial value. Now, if you were sued, there is a good chance that it would be in Bulgarian courts under Bulgarian patent law, which may be somewhat less harsh in some respects like damages awards than U.S. patent law. But, the basis for patent liability for an infringement in Bulgaria would be very similar.
You could almost define a country as, "an entity that can defend itself against invasions." Non-sovereign entities are indeed generally prohibited from deploying lethal autonomous defense systems like booby-traps. But governments and state-like actors, as a matter of practice, choose their own rules. laws-of-war and international-law are not like "regular" law: When it comes down to it, states only follow international conventions and treaties to the extent that they consider it to be in their own interest to do so. If you start mining your property, you will probably be forced to stop by local law enforcement. If a warlord starts mining his borders, he's going to get away with it until someone with more power convinces or forces him to stop. Was it "illegal" for Turkey to shoot down a Russian military aircraft? One could cite all sorts of laws and conventions to answer that question. But in practice the consequences of that act are limited to whatever Turkey allows, or to what Russia and its allies can impose on Turkey.
The short answer: No license is required in any U.S. jurisdiction to buy a firearm magazine. There are some jurisdictions that restrict the sale of "high-capacity" magazines to civilians. That's something that is changing often enough that any answer covering the U.S. will probably quickly be obsolete. Suffice it to say: If you can find it in a store there are no legal restrictions or conditions on purchasing it. Technically an "export" license might be required under ITAR to take magazines out of the country, but in practice this has not yet applied to individuals carrying low-tech small-arms accessories (in quantities reasonable for an individual's use).
Anything that helps you with your business and that you keep secret is a trade secret. The "keeping it secret" is an important part. Competitors are free to discover the same information themselves and use it, but stealing it from you is illegal. If a contractor needs to learn this information to do their job, you make them sign a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement which forbids them to pass that information on. That way, it remains a trade secret. If the contractor gives your trade secrets away, that is breach of contract and you can sue for damages. If a competitor pays your contractor to give them your trade secrets, that's not just illegal, it's criminal. On the other hand, if the contractor puts the information on his blog for example where everyone can read it, without having been enticed by someone to do this, then I believe your trade secret is gone and competitors can use it. Same as if you left documents on a park bench and your competitor finds them and reads them. You have to keep a trade secret a secret; if you fail to do so you lose. Asked about patents: If there is a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement in place, then nobody can apply for a patent. The whole idea of a patent is that you get legal protection in exchange for disclosing your invention. Applying for a patent would mean violation of the non-disclosure agreement.
Of course you have to follow the license. You seem to have a license that doesn't allow distribution and want to know if giving copies to the Dutch or Chinese branch of your company is distribution. First, you should not make that decision. Your company's lawyers should do that. Second, such distribution is with some licenses perfectly legal if you distribute the software with source code. That's a business decision which you or your manager or his/her manager... can make. Such questions (whether giving a copy to your Dutch branch is distribution) often don't have an answer that is yes or no but maybe - if you went to court, would a judge say that it is distribution? The answer is quite clearly "maybe". So unless you can find a safe way, there is a risk. Again, your lawyers will assess the risk.
The problem is that open source licenses incl AGPL have legal force because copyright prevents copying + modifying software by default (software is treated as a “literary work” and therefore enjoys copyright protection). But copyright on datasets and ML models is very different – if it is even recognized at all. Thus, similar copyleft techniques would only work in particular jurisdictions. For example, the EU recognizes “database rights”. A copyleft license that accounts for this is CC-BY-SA-4.0, meaning that in an EU context, databases based on the original database would have to use the same license. However, database rights are not recognized in the US (facts are not copyrightable, and the “sweat of the brow” doctrine is not recognized). Thus, the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license would not have any copyleft effect with respect to databases in an US context. Independently of copyright in the database as a whole, the data in the database might be copyrighted material, for example if the database contains text or images, complicating matters further. Machine learning models derived from a data set are much more difficult. Clearly, ML models that have been trained are not a creative work and are therefore not eligible for independent copyright protection. At most, it can be argued that the model is an automatically transformed version of the input data, so that copyright in the input data implies copyright in the model.1 Perhaps hyperparameter choices could reflect some creative input. This is very much an active topic of debate. Given this uncertainty, it would be impossible to create a public license that works reliably. 1. An interesting discussion topic is the potential effect on Microsoft's Copilot ML model which was also trained on GPL-licensed source code. Instead of deriving force from copyright law, it would be possible to impose conditions via a contract, i.e. EULA-like terms that only provide access to the material after the terms have been accepted. But again, this is difficult. Contract law differs wildly between jurisdictions. For example, a contract is defined by the “meeting of minds” in some jurisdictions; by offer, acceptance, and consideration in others. But how does such a contract ensure appropriate consideration? How can acceptance be ensured if the material is publicly available? For these reasons, I think that unless broad international agreement emerges about IP protections for machine learning models, such a copyleft system for ML models is impossible. It is worth noting that the lack of such protections is probably quite good for innovation and research, since researchers are free to improve each other's work without legal concerns. The idea of copyleft is a hack to subvert the “everything is forbidden by default” system of copyright, but “everything is allowed by default” might be better.2 2. To continue the Microsoft Copilot example: some copyleft advocates like Bradley M Kuhn are sceptical about Copilot's GPL compliance, but remind us that copyleft maximalism means copyright maximalism, and that this is not the goal of open source. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/feb/03/github-copilot-copyleft-gpl/