John's initial point is correct. A copyright protected work's copyright is infringed by the creation of an unauthorized translation, which is considered a derivative work. Here is the tricky part; the fact that you read the work and then created the derivative work does not take the translated work outside of the original author's copyright interest. Whether you have an incredible memory or not, a translation is a translation (I agree that a modification from one computer language to another is ostensibly the same as a translation from one human language to another as far as the matter of derivative works). Hence, John's second fact pattern switched from an inquiry concerning authorization to create a derivative work to a question of whether the Perl program was independently created (i.e. original to that author). In my opinion, John's hypo is just as likely to lead to litigation as the one he was responding to since "reading" the program could be circumstantial evidence of copying.
Rod Dixon On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, John Cowan wrote: > Kenny Tilton wrote: > > > > Now suppose I have developed a useful hack in language X, which could > > readily be translated into language Z. Can someone else make that > > translation and claim ownwership of that software? > > Modification definitely includes translation. If you want to > translate a novel from Portuguese to Hindi, you need a license from > the copyright owner, and just so for translating a program from > Fortran to Perl. > > But if I just *read* your Fortran program, and then invent my own > Perl program that does the same thing, it is not a derivative work; > it can even have features in common with the original, if those features > are the only (or the only straightforward) way to accomplish the > purpose, just as two different implementations of the same API > can contain the same code if it's the obvious code. > > -- > Not to perambulate || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > the corridors || http://www.reutershealth.com > during the hours of repose || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan > in the boots of ascension. \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel > > -- > license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 > -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
