OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product

[Bob Kline]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:

> Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:
> 
> I am interested in whether Kline's assertion is correct.  As far as
> I can tell, the doctorine of 'De minimis non curat lex' is not
> really relevent to the issue of copyrighted works that are derived
> from public domain works.  Instead, de minimis concerns the issue of
> fair use of small portions of a copyrighted work escaping copyright
> violation claims.

I am not a lawyer [1], but I do know that discussions like these benefit
from looking at what the available authoritative source have to say
about the questions being discussed.  For example,

    "To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different
    enough from the original to be regarded as a new work or
    must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making
    minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting
    work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright
    purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable
    in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example,
    are not copyrightable." [2]

The basic principle is that the changes must be sufficiently substantial
that they would stand on their own as a copyrightable work.  Logic 101:

  * A short phrase is not copyrightable (see quoted passage above).
  * A single character is less substantial than a short phrase.
  * Therefore, change of a single character does not qualify for
    copyright protection.

This quote is from U.S. sources.  The same principles apply throughout
the major western countries.  I have no specific knowledge of the
copyright principles in effect elsewhere, though in general the legal
systems in western countries tend to be more protective of authors'
rights than in the rest of the world, so it would be surprising to find
other countries which offered more restrictive protection against
copying of works derived from public domain material than is offered in
the west, and inconceivable that any would carry such protection to
derivative works which contained such a ludicrously small amount of
newly contributed material as is currently under discussion.

[1] I did work in the U.S. Copyright Office for nineteen years, however.
[2] http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ14.pdf

-- 
Bob Kline
mailto:bkline at rksystems.com
http://www.rksystems.com