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> The Ship of Theseus is still the Ship of Theseus. you state this as if it's a settled fact (it isn't). If you take a Shakespeare novel and replace every wor

> The Ship of Theseus is still the Ship of Theseus. you state this as if it's a settled fact (it isn't). If you take a Shakespeare novel and replace every word in it with another word, and then remove and add many chapters to it, then shuffle all the pages, is it still a Shakespeare work or even recognizable as being derived from one? I think most would say "no". In the case of Ship of Theseus, if you replaced every part with a different looking part, removed 30% of the parts entirely and added another 300% parts such that the function was expanded by 1,000%, would anyone recognize it as the same thing? There has to be _some_ threshold beyond which you cannot reasonably claim the work is derivative.

genocidicbunny 6y ago
Humour me, why must there be such a threshold? If version B is modified from version A as a derivative work (therefore licensed as A) and version C is modified from version B as a derivative work of B, then would C not still be licensed same as B, and therefore A? It seems it depends on how you view the accumulation of differences. If your only comparison is always against version A, then yes, eventually there must be enough accumulation of differences that one could claim a work is no longer derivative. But if you consider all versions between A and yours, then suddenly its just a series of gradual changes, none of which individually cause the work to become non-derivative. The Ship of Theseus parable seems to also fit this latter interpretation more -- it is after all about replacing items one at a time. I agree with you from a practical legal point though. My argument above seems to imply that there's only been derived work since the first cell split in two. In practice this would be a nightmare; There should be a threshold whereupon a work can qualify on its own merits.

genocidicbunny 6y ago

Humour me, why must there be such a threshold? If version B is modified from version A as a derivative work (therefore licensed as A) and version C is modified from version B as a derivative work of B, then would C not still be licensed same as B, and therefore A? It seems it depends on how you view the accumulation of differences. If your only comparison is always against version A, then yes, eventually there must be enough accumulation of differences that one could claim a work is no longer derivative. But if you consider all versions between A and yours, then suddenly its just a series of gradual changes, none of which individually cause the work to become non-derivative. The Ship of Theseus parable seems to also fit this latter interpretation more -- it is after all about replacing items one at a time. I agree with you from a practical legal point though. My argument above seems to imply that there's only been derived work since the first cell split in two. In practice this would be a nightmare; There should be a threshold whereupon a work can qualify on its own merits.