"Alfred M. Szmidt" wrote: [...] > Sighs, it has been said by four people by now, me included: you retain > all the rights to your code! Period, end of story, nothing more to > discuss. Be it original, or deriviate, it is your code, you are the > copyright holder. End of story.
End of ams' bullshit. A non-original is a derivative (not "deriviate"). A derivative work must contain some protected elements from the original work (otherwise it won't be a derivative work) and those elements remain under old copyright of original author (new copyright in derivative work doesn't cover/replace it). An example is some C99 code translated (by human) to say Pascal83. As long as translation contains structure and organization elements (not dictated by external factors... see case law on the AFC test for the full list of unprotectable elements) from original C99 code, it is a derivative work. Combining two original works A and B never creates a derivative work. The resulting work C is a mere aggregation. An independent selection of more than two computer program works for combination may qualify for copyright protection as a compilation (this legal term of art includes collective works), but resulting original compilation work C is NOT a derivative work: its copyright covers only selection of other works in a compilation, it belongs solely to the author of compilation work, and exclusive right to prepare compilations is nonexistent. A reproduction of a compilation as a whole (including its constituent works) requires permission (to reproduce) from all copyright owners (exceptions to exclusive rights aside for a moment), just like reproduction of a derivative work, but this similarity doesn't transform compilations (together with unprotectable aggregations) to derivative works. regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss