Re: Legal issues with haskell-unix-time
Eloi <entfe001@gmail.com> writes:
> Just a side question: Are these funcions even copyrightable?
Copyright is not a thing done to works; it exists automatically, from
the moment a work exists in fixed form. (From this unfortunate fact,
comes many of the thorny issues of making works free.)
I assume you're asking something like “does copyright law restrict
recipients of a work consisting entirely of these functions?”
> The is_leap function is quite trivial, and the typical exercise for a
> programming student; the timegm is a conversion from a tm struct to an
> unix time which could even be reimplemented with no great effort.
The question of “does copyright apply?” varies significantly by
jurisdiction, and across years, and across case law.
One common rule of thumb to tell whether copyright might obtain in a
work is: was there creative decision-making involved in generating the
work?
If the work could feasibly be expressed in various ways, then any given
expression may be considered – by whichever copyright jurisdiction
decides the hypothetical case in the future – to be a creative work.
--
\ “Oh, I realize it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at |
`\ me: I've worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme |
_o__) poverty.” —Groucho Marx |
Ben Finney
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