Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > Then the issue becomes what is meant by "present". > > The plaintiff points to a sequence in the allegedly infringing text > and demonstrates that the sequence has been copied from their original > work. Or the plaintiff presents other evidence that the defendant > made unauthorized copies. > > > That program can only be written by copying the (copyrighted) API > > source code, directly or indirectly, into the programs code. > > That is false. Programs are written to invoke API elements by name. > That is not copyright violation, because of interoperability and > because it is the only way to write such code. When there is only > one way to write something, copyrights cannot be enforced on that > thing. > > > I'm talking about a single program. > > No you are not. We are talking about writing an add-in to an existing > program. There are thus two programs, the add-in and the existing program. > These are two separate pieces of text. It is irrelevant for copyright > purposes that in execution the two programs will be found together. > Copyright is about copying, not about operation. > > > Am I really? Are you not? > > Yes you are, and yes I'm not. > > >> Again, there is no such concept as "derived from other work" in copyright > >> law. > > > > Sorry, a derivative work means one which is derived from pure > > nothingness. My mistake. ;-) > > A derivative work is a significant transformation of an existing work > by a human author. Text in a computer program which is meant to represent > invocation of methods defined elsewhere is not a transformation of those > functions. Such a computer program is not a derivative work of those > functions. A work "derived from" another can mean any number of things, > and I am not comfortable in saying that a work is not "derived from" > another when it is simply not a derivative work of the other. > > > Agreed, even though the "only" aspect of Alice's copyrighted work in > > Bob's binaries is a highly abstract convoluted transformation, > > discernible only with long-winded difficult analysis. > > Not really difficult; you prove that Bob did it by finding people who > saw him do it. If you can convince people based on the analysis, then > you can do that too. > > > Sorry no, not always. It's possible, but can be difficult, as in the > > scenarios below. If the infringement consists of a translation to a > > different language, it will require painstaking analysis to detect. > > How does the complainant know that the infringement happened? Unless he's > psychic, he must have some sort of evidence. He may have evidence based on > witnesses seeing the infringement being committed, or he has evidence based > upon noticing similarities. He then has to convince a court with that same > evidence. > > > False. Bob will have to begin with the existing code (whether source > > or object is irrelevant, you have said), since he requires the .h file > > (or equivalent) which describes the format of the intermediate code. > > Bob is not copying that file. He writes the text '#include "generator.h"'. > If I write the text "Copy verbatim the text of the Harry Potter novels." > I have not copied the text of the Harry Potter novels. If he presents his > source code to a compiler, the compiler will read that file, but the > output of the compiler is not subject to the copyright on that file unless > the compiler copies significant portions of that file into the output. In > any case, the source is not subject to that copyright because the source > does not contain a copy of the file. Copyright is about copies.
+1 See also "mere aggregation". regards, alexander. -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
