Re: copyright on colorschemes for editors?

[Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 09:02:53AM +0200, Evgeni Golov wrote:
> [ Please CC me and Matthew, we are not subscribed to -legal@ ]
...
> I would tend to "is an own creative work, merely inspired", but would 
> love to hear some opinion from people more familiar with such topics 
> than I am.

I am no expert on this topic but reminded me of a word "homage".  I put
"copyright homage" into google and found few interesting texts/pages
which may be worth sharing.

For example: "Homage and plagiarism", has the following:
  http://www.iplawintheus.com/homage-and-plagiarism/
  When it really comes down to it, most scholars would argue that you
  really can’t create a one hundred percent original work. Everything is
  derivative in some way. 
  ...
  There’s really no solid, inarguable law on the books regarding the
  line between borrowing an element from another’s work, taking influence,
  or just repackaging their work without authorization.

  (There are interesting references to many famous movie cases, too.)

I do not even know if this is true or not.  But I have heard similar
stories, so this is not too far from the reality.  The bottom line is it
is a difficult question which requires in-depth assessments.

In the end, the upstream has to decide if the work is just an inspired
original work or mere copy of other people's work based on his
knowledge.  Debian usually trusts the upstream assessment unless someone
raise serious issue based on facts, as I understand.

Please also note facts can not be copyrighted.

Good luck.

Osamu