Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[bts@alum.mit.edu (Brian T. Sniffen)]

Anthony DeRobertis <asd@suespammers.org> writes:

> On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 15:16, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
>> >
>> > That would seem to fit much better than derivative work, yes.
>> > However I do wonder whether the combination of host and plugin
>> > constitutes an original work of authorship? There seems to
>> > be little creativity involved. 
>> 
>> Sure there is -- but it's performed by the person who wrote the
>> plugin, as he sculpts the interface to fit to the host, and to provide
>> useful functionality to it -- not merely by itself.
>
> Copyright law (at least in the US) recongnizes that a creative effort
> can go into selecting, arranging, etc. the pieces of a compilation. If
> there is sufficient creativity in doing that, the compilation gets a
> copyright which is seperate from the copyrights of each of the works
> inside the compilation.

Right, but since the plugin author clearly intended it to fit with and
accompany the host, there's no creativity on the part of the combiner.
And we're well back into "argue it in court" territory.

-Brian