[License-review] For Approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License

[Scott Peterson]

Bruce --

It looks like Van's response to your question about the basis for public
performance right explains that software is a literary work. And, it is the
case that US copyright law provides for literary works an exclusive right
of public performance:
17 USC 106 (4) "in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual
works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;" So, indeed, copyright in
software comes with the exclusive right of public performance.

My point is narrower: making an interface available to other software or
interoperating with other software is not a "performance" as that word is
used in the copyright law.

-- Scott


On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 5:44 PM Bruce Perens via License-review <
license-review at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

> Let's try that again.
>
> Van's response was a reply to this question:
>
> >* First, would you please discuss whether there is a sufficient public
> *>* performance right for software defined in 17 USC 106 (4), (5) and (6)? I
> *>* read your discussion of Public Performance and was not enlightened.*
> *
>
> Upon re-reading, it appears that Van read my question as asking whether
> software was copyrightable at all, and did not really answer the question
> about the public performance right. This is either misunderstanding, or
> squirrely lawyer stuff :-)
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