license-mix, legal consequences?

[John Cowan]

Rick Moen wrote:


> Strictly speaking, you're not barred from _making_ works with
> incompatible licences; the derivative work would just not be lawfully
> _distributable_, as so doing would violate the licensing terms of the 
> third-party borrowed work.


The U.S. Copyright Act, at least (section 106), speaks of "prepar[ing]
derivative works based upon the copyrighted work" as one of the
exclusive rights of authors.  So in theory at least you are not
allowed even to translate your copy of _Foundation and Empire_ into
Javanese, since that is preparing a derivative work.

General legal considerations like *de minimis* enter into play here,

of course.

-- 
There is / one art             || John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
no more / no less              || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things             || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness           \\ -- Piet Hein