In the world of intellectual property and copyrights, the common thought is: “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than get permission.” Well… according to a posting from Eugene Volokh (Professor of Law at UCLA), this may not always be the case:
“When it comes to using copyrighted works that are owned by two or more people. You can get a nonexclusive license up front from just one of them, without the others’ permission. But once you infringe you can’t get a retroactive license from just one — you’d have to get forgiven by all of them.”
This could have very interesting consequences on the Internet-based economy…