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The one confusing thing to me about this is that you're not supposed to append copyright years to a notice when the contents have not changed, yet this script got copyrighted all the way to 1989.
(Please read this comment as written in the same tone as the original article.)
Adding copyright notices to every source code file is reasonable because it costs next to nothing. Figuring out what is copyrightable, on the other hand, is expensive, because it requires lawyers, and a waste of time because lawyers' answers are always "it depends". You never actually know how enforceable your copyright claim is until you actually litigate, which is REALLY expensive.
To expand on that idea, purely functional expressions are not copyrightable in the first place. How and when software becomes copyrightable is undefined in law.
Adding copyright notices to every source code file is reasonable because it costs next to nothing. Figuring out what is copyrightable, on the other hand, is expensive, because it requires lawyers, and a waste of time because lawyers' answers are always "it depends". You never actually know how enforceable your copyright claim is until you actually litigate, which is REALLY expensive.
> a waste of time because lawyers' answers are always "it depends". Sorry for the little OT rant, but I'll have to object to that. That's IMO less of a lawyer thing, and more a "asking a field expert a generic question and expecting an immediate, brief answer" kind of thing. In my experience, if you straight up ask any field expert, be it a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, etc... a vague, but obviously case specific qu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A copyright notice is relevant to willful infringement, which may result in higher damages. Willful infringement requires that the infringer actually knew or should have known (or deliberately avoided finding out) that the copied material was copyrighted.
If any creative work is copyrighted by default (and ignorance of the law is not an excuse) then surely all use of a creative work without a license is willful infringement?
I have a bunch of code in a repository or set of repositories. I got confused and thought this file was one we created/had a license to reuse rather than a piece of third-party code, and thus copied it into a different project.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To expand on that idea, purely functional expressions are not copyrightable in the first place. How and when software becomes copyrightable is undefined in law.
Why not? Do you have a reference for that?
(b)In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
Further discussion https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/software/protection/
Well damn. I guess I can’t use blank lines in my code anymore. This is going to be rough. Also are there any copyright koans? As in a copyright notice that copyrights itself?
See also https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3... ( https://archive.is/sjYJG ), where the rumored settlement payment was £100,000.
Sometimes parties pay what seems like a lot of money to settle dubious claims because it's cheaper and less time-consuming than fighting them. That can be completely rational. But paying £100,000 for infringing one minute of silence is just ridiculous.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes parties pay what seems like a lot of money to settle dubious claims because it's cheaper and less time-consuming than fighting them. That can be completely rational. But paying £100,000 for infringing one minute of silence is just ridiculous.
The liner notes included an attribution to John Cage, making the case somewhat more complicated.
The one confusing thing to me about this is that you're not supposed to append copyright years to a notice when the contents have not changed, yet this script got copyrighted all the way to 1989.
> you're not supposed to append copyright years to a notice It shouldn't matter because the date of actual first publication would control, not what is on one particular notice.