My understanding is that anything you write is considered a work of art and is hence considered copyrighted to you. If you created a screen design with associated event code then this is definitely your copyright, even though you may have used part of it from another source (eg CodeProject.com). I believe that this is the case even when you do custom software for a paying customer.
If you were an artist who was engaged to paint a portrait of somebody who later became famous, the painting may become valuable and be owned by somebody. However I believe that they cannot copy it without your permission. If you pay to get house plans drawn up for you, you only own the ability to show them to other people. If you wanted to get the Autocad or Revitt source file then you would have to ask very nicely and you may indeed be refused even though you have paid for the design. Having said that there are many countries that do not recognise international copyright law. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tony Wright Sent: Monday, 1 February 2010 1:55 AM To: [email protected]; 'ausDotNet' Subject: Code generation and copyright Hi all, Possibly stupid middle of the night question: I'm interested in knowing if anyone knows how copyright applies to code generation. I'm talking about the code that gets produced, not the tool itself. Of course each piece of generated code will be unique based on any unique inputs to whatever template you select. Is that what makes it yours? I know people will probably make assumptions because we all do it - however has anyone actually looked at what the implications of this is? Regards, Tony
