Jevan Pipitone wrote : > The fact that it says "No Derivatives" seems a concern for example sometimes researchers can publish a summary of other peoples articles and then include all the articles used in the references. [...]
... to gain ideas from other people which can then be used to create new things by the researcher, but, this is potentially a "derivative" work since it can build on the work of others. So I think there is a problem there too. > This is a relevant question. Ideas are not protected by copyright. Thus whatever the license (if any), one can always build upon the ideas found in the texts of others. One has to mention the source, but it’s a matter of scientific integrity, not of copyright. What is protected is the particular expression of ideas, as found in a text, for instance. However, the difference between ideas and their expression is not clear-cut, as the only way to communicate ideas is by expressing them. In order to guarantee the free use of ideas embedded in copyright law, courts have held that when there are just a few ways to express an idea, or when an idea is so simple that there is no significant “creativity” or “originality” involved in its expression, reusing the expression is deemed using the idea; it’s not thus a basis for copyright protection (and infringement). In particular, creating a summary of a work can be viewed as expressing in another way the ideas found in the first work. The summary is then an original work, based on the ideas of the first, so that there is no copyright issue. But such a summary could include particular expressions, some of them not simple, taken from the first work. At an extreme, one could build a summary mainly by juxtaposing carefully chosen excerpts from the first work; this would open the door to the summary being a derivate work. You can imagine all intermediate situations; there is a grey zone here. In conclusion, because of this uncertainty, the ND condition could indeed be an impediment to the reuse not only of a work, but even of the ideas it conveys. Marc Couture
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