Viral licenses (was: wxWindows library...)

[John Cowan]

Alexander Terekhov scripsit:
> John Cowan wrote:
> [...]
> > You can't compare property in physical things directly to its
> > copyright.  If you replace the car by a detailed description of 
> > it (#1), and incorporate into that a detailed description of the 
> > gas pedal (#2) that has already been written, then #1 is indeed 
> > a derivative work of #2.
> 
> I don't think so. Such aggregated work (technical specification) 
> is a compilation, not a derivative work, AFAIK. 

I used the very strong verb "incorporate", which though it does
not appear in the text of the statute itself, is present in the
legislative history that clarifies the meaning of "derivative work".
This fact is noted in the very reference you cite:

> http://www.digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise27.html
> (see VI.D.4. Derivative Works and Compilations)

[snip]

> A bookstore can replace the 
> last chapter of a mystery novel without infringing its 
> copyright, as long as they are not reprinting the other 
> chapters but are simply removing the last chapter and 
> replacing it with an alternative one, but must not pass the 
> book off as the original. Having a copyright in a work does 
> not give that copyright owner unlimited freedom in the terms 
> he can impose.

This would only be true if a mystery novel were to be considered
a compilation, an unlikely circumstance (though not unheard-of:
the book _Naked Came The Stranger_ did in fact have this status,
though published under a single pseudonym).  In that case, the
compilation copyright would permit such a substitution as you
describe above (IANAL, TINLA).

Note that the above quotation comes from an amicus brief written
by a computer scientist (HINAL).  In addition, you omit the citation
given:

	See, for example, Lasercomb
	America Inc. v. Reynolds, 911 F2d 970 (Fourth Circuit, 1990).

This decision is available online at
http://www.digital-law-online.info/cases/15PQ2D1846.htm , but I do not
see any conceivable talmudistic reasoning that would allow the above
hypo to be considered in any way parallel to it.  Lasercomb America
was barred from defending its copyright because it had tried, as part
of its license, to prevent licensees from making their own software
(derivative work or not) that would compete with Lasercomb America's.
In any case, the defendants below were still nailed for fraud.

> To me, the GPL does allow "reprinting" (that's section 1). 
> So any "alternative" stuff can be added and distributed 
> together with the original stuff.  And, of course, the 
> "alternative" added stuff doesn't need to be under the GPL 
> as long as the added stuff is NOT a derivative work of the 
> GPL'd thing (read: was prepared without copying any 
> protected elements from the GPL'd thing [clean room] or 
> simply doesn't contain them at all being a completely 
> different [new] functional part of "a whole" work).

Added material is not itself a derivative work of the GPL'd
thing, obviously.  A binary, however, which combines them into
a single object, probably is.

> www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-cplfaq.html
> 
> <quote>
> 
> Q: When I incorporate a portion of a Program licensed under 
> the CPL into my own proprietary product distributed in object 
> code form, can I use a single license for the full product, 
> in other words, covering the portion of the Program plus my 
> own code? 

Note the presence once more of the verb "incorporate".

-- 
Principles.  You can't say A is         John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
made of B or vice versa.  All mass      http://www.reutershealth.com
is interaction.  --Richard Feynman      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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