On 25/02/15 15:55, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
> Now at least we agreed that logo could be released under CC BY SA
> (share-alike) license but I wondered: if I have a software project
> which is under more permissive license (MIT or BSD-3) and then includes
> that logo a) in the code b) in the documentation. Does it obligates
> "share alike" (thus copyleft) licensing of the entire project, i.e. it
> would not be available for close-source derivatives?
The important question is, is the code or documentation legally a
derivative work of the logo, or have they just been put alongside each
other? (This is really a question for a lawyer - it's a question about
copyright law, not about CC licenses.)
If the logo is compiled into the executable, I would argue that the
executable is a derivative work of both its source code and the logo. If
the logo is loaded by name at runtime, such that you could trivially
substitute any graphic of the same size, I would argue that it isn't:
there is nothing about the logo that was an input to making the
executable, other than perhaps its size and format, which are unlikely
to be considered a creative choice (and hence not protected by copyright).
Similarly, if the documentation loads a separate logo (e.g. in HTML) and
would make just as much sense with a different logo design referring to
essentially the same thing, it probably isn't a derivative work, but if
it integrates the logo into some sort of clever graphic design that it
would have been done differently if the logo was different, then it
probably is.
S
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