Does "modification" include translation to another HLL?

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

> 
> Rod Dixon wrote:
> 
> > Hmm...I doubt that the puzzle can be solved by switching 
> from read to 
> > examine.  If you copy the work and the work is copyright-protected, 
> > telling a judge that instead of "reading" the work, you 
> "examined" it 
> > is not going to work. You could try to dodge the bullet by 
> looking for 
> > cover under reverse engineering, but doing so in this case is why 
> > copyright holders have tried to deconstruct the 
> deconstructor. Reverse 
> > engineering is not a license to copy and the facts we are 
> discussing 
> > do not show why it is relevant.
> 
> I am not sure we are discussing the same facts.  If I 
> interact with your (tty-mode) program thus:
> 
> ? 3+4
> 7
> ? 42+42
> 84
> ? 5*5
> 25
> 
> I can deduce it is a calculator and write my own calculator 
> program. This is what I meant by "examining the program" (as 
> distinct from "reading the source").
Ok, but your prior example referred to porting a program from one
computer language to another.


>  Otherwise Netscape 
> would infringe Mosaic, but it does not
[snip]

I think we can agree that Netscape and Mosaic are particularly
interesting examples since web browsers illustrate the full range of
issues here.

In particular, web browsers highlight that there are limits to the
analogy between human language translations of copyright-protected works
and ports from one computer language (or operating system) to another.
Software seems to always present a slightly more complicated fact
pattern. 

First, I am unsure what deal Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark had to
arrange to "take" Mosaic from the University Illinois and call it
Netscape Navigator, that issue is not what I am addressing, but  as I
recall, there were a few issues to be resolved. 

More to the point, Tim Berners-Lee reported that the predecessor of
Netscape, Mosaic, was developed for a class project by Andreessen and a
classmate by studying another browser (I believe called Viola) made
available under the GNU GPL. Hence, Mosaic's development fits exactly
the point I was making.  Two students studied (or examined, or read...)
a pre-existing web browser and created a derivative work (a browser with
a GUI that ran on Windows), which would constitute copyright
infringement except for the existence of a GPL permitting such. This is
not to say that Mosaic eventually become an improvement over the browser
the students copied, but that is not the point. Even so, there are many
anecdotal stories of others creating web browsers independently; Lynx is
one and Tim Berners-Lee's browser is another. Hence, we have examples on
both side of the issue with web browsers, which raises lots of
interesting issues, I think.


-Rod

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