Hi Diane, thanks very much for copying the words of the CC licenses. I agree 
with those words in your license except for the word "arranged." They DO mean 
"derivative work." In fact, those are almost the same words that I used in my 
own licenses to mean that difficult copyright term. As long as the following 
statement is in your definition, I'm happy:

 

and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, 
transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the 
Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor.

 

(My emphasis by underlining and deletion of the word "arranged".) I also 
believe the phrase I recommended earlier says almost the same thing in its 
intent: "software that is modified or expressly changed in its executable or 
source code form." It includes everything (except "arranged") that your license 
describes. But if you prefer your wording, great!

 

On the other hand, I repeat yet again because it is critical to understanding 
copyleft and copyright law, the words we frequently use on this list to mean 
derivative work – don't. They confuse. They lead to fear of litigation. They 
lead to fear of the GPL.

 

No other copyleft licenses but the GPL pursue those confusing definitions. MPL 
is fine. ECL is fine. GPL + the Classpath Exception is fine. My own licenses 
are clearly defined.

 

I've said this on this list more than enough times. It is now appropriate for 
others to defend their interpretations under copyright law, or change their 
license interpretations. Or probably they'll continue to do nothing about the 
confusion they cause.

 

/Larry 

 

 

From: Diane Peters [mailto:di...@creativecommons.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2016 5:49 AM
To: license-discuss@opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Words that don't mean derivative work

 

To the extent helpful, we at CC put a lot of thought into how to best define 
the notion of what constitutes a derivative work ("Adapted Material" in CC 4.0 
vernacular) when we last versioned. We expressly tied it to copyright law. If a 
downstream licensee uses the work in a manner that implicates the licensor's 
exclusive right under copyright to create derivative works, then the ShareAlike 
condition is triggered. Not otherwise.

 

Adapted Material means material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights that is 
derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed 
Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified 
in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by 
the Licensor [omitting additional clause re synching]

 

Diane




Diane M. Peters

General Counsel, Creative Commons

Portland, Oregon

http://creativecommons.org/staff#dianepeters

13:00-21:00 UTC

 

On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 4:03 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com 
<mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com> > wrote:

Simon Phipps the other day used the word "integration" to mean "derivative 
work." Recently on this and other open source email lists we've seen 
"combinations," "inclusion," "kernel space," "shim," "interface" and "API", 
"header file", and "linking".

 

None of those is ipso facto a derivative work under U.S. copyright law. This is 
unfortunate for those of us who want to obey licenses. Wouldn't it be nice if 
the following sentence – by mutual agreement – was added to ALL of our FOSS 
licenses:

 

Licensor hereby additionally asserts that the copyleft, reciprocity, or 
derivative work obligations in this license only apply to software that is 
modified or expressly changed in its executable or source code form.

 

This is just a wish that the FOSS community could, in our vernacular, cooperate 
that consistently with the copyright law.

 

/Larry


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