FTF: Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)
What is the FLA?
The Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) is a copyright assignment that allows one entity to safeguard all of the code created for a project by consolidating copyright (or exclusive exploitation rights) to counteract copyright fragmentation.
This enables projects to protect their legal maintainability by preserving the ability to relicense code and ensuring sufficient rights to enforce licences in court. The person assigning does not lose their rights to the code either, as the FLA gives back unlimited usage/single exploitation rights to the author. The FLA also applies a set of principles for the fiduciary. If they breach these principles, all grants and licenses made to them automatically expire.
The FLA is used for FSFE's Fiduciary Programme. It can also be adapted to assign the rights to any other third party.
- Download a PDF copy of FSFE's version of the FLA
- Download a customisable copy of the FLA (LaTex format, GFDL licenced)
- Download a customisable copy of the FLA (LaTex format, CC by-sa licenced)
Whichever projects decide, Free Software Foundation Europe's Freedom Task Force will be happy to help. You can send us a message through our online contact form.
Authors
The FLA was written by Dr. Axel Metzger (ifross) and Georg Greve (FSFE) in consultation with renowned international legal and technical experts. Parties ivolved in the evolution of the FLA at some point or another included RA Dr. Till Jaeger, Carsten Schulz, Prof. Eben Moglen, RA Thorsten Feldmann, LL.M., Werner Koch, Alessandro Rubini, Reinhard Muller and others. The latest revision was compiled by Georg Greve and FSFE's FTF coordinator Shane M Coughlan based on feedback provided by Dr. Lucie Guibault of the Institute for Information Law in the Netherlands.
Feedback
If you have general feedback, comments and also questions about the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) contact us.
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