As for the third paragraph, I think something needs to be clarified. In the absence of an assignment, a work-for-hire situation or similar ownership transferring or sharing relationships, I believe a derived work under U.S. law (or more accurately under U.S. copyright law - a derivative work) is owned by the author of that derived work subject to the rights of whoever owns the "base" materials of the derived work. The owner of the "base" materials has the exclusive authority to make derivative works and may grant someone else the right to make a derivative work. If that someone else chooses to make a derivative work then that author owns the new material contributed as part of the derivative work. If the someone else wanted to make copies of or distribute the complete derived work then he/she would likely need a license from the owner with respect to the base materials.
For example, I write a book and I authorize some movie company to make a movie of the book - a classic case of a derivative work. I own the book; the movie company owns the movie subject to my copyright interest in the story. I don't think the result is any different if I make a one-line or 100KLOC patch.
See, e.g., section 103(b) of the U.S. Copyright Act below: § 103. Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and derivative works(b)The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work,as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work,and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of,and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of,any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
From: Branden Robinson <branden@ecn.purdue.edu> To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: "Open Source" Motif Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 04:51:42 -0400 On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 11:52:39AM -0500, David Starner wrote:> In real life, the vast majority of the people will contribute the patches back> under both licenses. In many cases, they don't really have much choice; changes on the scale of bugfixes or small feature enhancements are easily derived works, with corresponding status under copyright law. That said, I don't know of any case law on point that addresses issues of when a modification to source code is signficiant enough to be independently copyrightable. Still, it's important to keep in mind that a one-line patch is not independently copyrightable by the submitter. It is a derived work, and so copyright for that patch belongs to the author of the original source (or his designee). -- G. Branden Robinson | It doesn't matter what you are doing, Debian GNU/Linux | emacs is always overkill. branden@ecn.purdue.edu | -- Stephen J. Carpenter roger.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ | << attach3 >>
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