Not sure what is meant by the first paragraph. U.S. copyright law does have
a de minimis rule but that rule is very open-ended as you indicated. There
is no fixed guideline on what is too insignificant for copyright protection.
It is a case-by-case analysis. It would be up to that someone who chose to
use those "bugfixes and small feature enhancements" outside of the terms of
the relevant license terms to determine the risks of whether the de minimis
argument would be successful (subject of course to whatever other defences
may be available under the law). Some are more risk averse than others.
As for the third paragraph, I think something needs to be clarified. In the
absence of an assignment, a work-for-hire situation or similar ownership
transferring or sharing relationships, I believe a derived work under U.S.
law (or more accurately under U.S. copyright law - a derivative work) is
owned by the author of that derived work subject to the rights of whoever
owns the "base" materials of the derived work. The owner of the "base"
materials has the exclusive authority to make derivative works and may grant
someone else the right to make a derivative work. If that someone else
chooses to make a derivative work then that author owns the new material
contributed as part of the derivative work. If the someone else wanted to
make copies of or distribute the complete derived work then he/she would
likely need a license from the owner with respect to the base materials.
For example, I write a book and I authorize some movie company to make a
movie of the book - a classic case of a derivative work. I own the book; the
movie company owns the movie subject to my copyright interest in the story.
I don't think the result is any different if I make a one-line or 100KLOC
patch.
See, e.g., section 103(b) of the U.S. Copyright Act below:
ยง 103. Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and derivative works
(b)The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the
material contributed by the author of such work,as distinguished from the
preexisting material employed in the work,and does not imply any exclusive
right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent
of,and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or
subsistence of,any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
From: Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: "Open Source" Motif
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 04:51:42 -0400
On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 11:52:39AM -0500, David Starner wrote:
> In real life, the vast majority of the people will contribute the
patches back
> under both licenses.
In many cases, they don't really have much choice; changes on the scale of
bugfixes or small feature enhancements are easily derived works, with
corresponding status under copyright law.
That said, I don't know of any case law on point that addresses issues of
when a modification to source code is signficiant enough to be
independently copyrightable.
Still, it's important to keep in mind that a one-line patch is not
independently copyrightable by the submitter. It is a derived work, and so
copyright for that patch belongs to the author of the original source (or
his designee).
--
G. Branden Robinson | It doesn't matter what you are doing,
Debian GNU/Linux | emacs is always overkill.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Stephen J. Carpenter
roger.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
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