Re: What makes software copyrightable anyway?

[Raul Miller <moth.debian@gmail.com>]

On 5/11/05, Humberto Massa <humberto.massa@almg.gov.br> wrote:
> That is your mistake: it's not the pages that carry protection, it's
> the words and illustrations on the pages (as in abstract,
> intelectual entities) that carry protection.

I thought copyright was protection for creative works in tangible
form.  You seem to be saying that copyright is protection for
creative works in intangible form?

>  >In this situation, for the GPL to grant you license to make copies,
>  >you would have to rely on the GPL's grant to make verbatim copies
>  >of the program.  If the transformations needed to build the program
>  >are not considered verbatim under Brazilian law, then the GPL fails
>  >to grant license to make copies in those cases.
> 
> No, because of the principle that if you can do copies of the
> source, and aggregate it with other stuff, then you can apply
> automated transformations on it. He who can do more (copy the
> source, redistribute), can do less (copy the binary, redistribute)
> as long as the conditions are met.

In other words, if a book publisher has permission to publish a story,
the publisher also has permission to publish an arbitrary set of
anthologies which contain that story -- no additional permissions
are needed (at least with respect to that story)?

Thanks,

-- 
Raul