On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:33:24 +0000 Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Whether or not some fragments of code remain unchanged at > the end of your project, if you start out with a piece of > source code lifted from wxPython then what you have > created is definitely a "derivative work" and, as such, > you must take into account the wxPython license in your > licensing of the derivative work.
This is certainly a very pervasive claim, but I really don't think it's true. Copyright law (at least in the US), says nothing about how a work was created -- only what the end product is. Copyright, after all, protects "expressions", not "ideas". What it means to "derive" a work from another is also extraordinarily vague in fact -- I gather there has been some definition through precedent, and I suspect it is the use of provenance as *evidence* of derivation that promotes this myth. But the mere fact that you started with someone else's work does not make it derivative. Consider for example that there are fine art collages made by cutting out magazine photos and assembling them -- in most cases, the work is regarded as a new work. Furthermore, it is generally true that a work may quote another work. But the interpretation is very vague and highly inconsistent from medium to medium. For example, it used to be that the same argument protected sampled music and TV (and it is still common to find works created under that assumption), but I believe that more recent cases have attacked this and won. Scholarly works quote copyrighted sources routinely, and in general, free speech must surely require this ability. In the Sony DRM case, though, would this make quoting a GPL'd piece of code in order to recognize it as a signature legal? (I know that allegations have been made that they do more than that, making the issue academic, but it's still an interesting question). The vagueness has been overly exploited and has effectively allowed copyright owners to claim that "derivative" means whatever they want it to mean -- and on that basis, maybe the myth is true as a practical matter. But that isn't what the law says. What the law actually says is that it has to be "twenty percent different" -- but this is "in whole or in part" so the implication is that it somehow has to be 20% different *throughout the work*. As regards software, there have been precedents to support the claim that mere cosmetic alteration does not obviate the copyright holder's claim, so the 20% change must also be substantive, not just cosmetic. But the fact by itself that you started with the original work in your editor does not, by the letter of the law, make it a derivative work. The "clean-room implementation" concept is based on alleviating a fear of litigation -- it forms the basis of a defense. It is *not* a legal requirement, AFAICT. Of course, IANAL. ;-) Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
