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> As best as I can tell, you would need to construct some sort of super-APL where "a single character" had significantly more information content than any Unico

> As best as I can tell, you would need to construct some sort of super-APL where "a single character" had significantly more information content than any Unicode glyph, to exceed any de minimis standard applied to a programming language. This used to be something cartographers did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street Even if you didn't have the street's name, if you copied the road on the map (no words, just the shape) they would know you stole their IP. I do not think there is literally a character that would satisfy this condition. The point of what I was saying was the "size" of the copying does not matter at all. The Substantial Similarity is explicitly about this phenomenon. For something to be substantially similar, from a software perspective, you could hypothetically see the modules and data structures contain roughly the same data types and that the flow of logic is the same. You could also point to a function and say "these are the same variable names". Substantial similarity is not the only component of a legal analysis of a copyright claim. Another important component of copyright is if someone had access to the material. If I had code on my laptop that I showed to no one, uploaded nowhere, and at some point I find another developer who is doing some code that is character for character identical to my work, I likely cannot do anything. The law is complex here, I am not a lawyer, but I think the important component here: The length of copying is not a factor at all. If for some reason your algorithm requires `magic_code.seed(20154)` and your code does this by doing `magic_code.seed(ord('人'))` and you find someone else doing the same thing you'd definitely want to investigate what's going on there. The entire copyright doctrine is created to help protect the creativity of an author. If there is something creative in your code that is copied, you likely have a copyright claim you could argue.

eesmith 5y ago
Your scenario was "If you copy a single character from a codebase that could could get nowhere but there". It was that "entirely possible" scenario I questioned. Not "roughly the same data types", "same variable names", "magic_code.seed(20154)", etc. I have no question with those. Those are enough characters that they may contain creative - and thus copyrightable - content. That is, I question your assertion that 'the "size" of the copying does not matter at all' by asking you to come up with an entirely possible scenario for why there is no de minimis case in software, even down to a single character, when there is in every other area of copyright. BTW, the WP page you pointed to notes that "Trap streets are not copyrightable under the federal law of the United States." Thus, "stole their IP" has no meaning - they have no copyright, trademark, patent, etc.
- gravypod 5y ago
  > I question your assertion that 'the "size" of the copying does not matter at all' by asking you to come up with an entirely possible scenario for why there is no de minimis case in software, even down to a single character, when there is in every other area of copyright. Where in copyright law for any area is there an established minimum "length"? I've never heard this nor heard lawyers claim of such a thing.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    I never made that claim. I even posited a "super-APL" where a single character was enough to contain the creativity which is a prerequisite for copyright protection. Such a language does not exist, and I don't think it ever could, but there is a slightly-greater-than-0% chance that it could happen. OTOH, your original context for an "entirely possible" scenario at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27730596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27730596 was "The amount of copying does not matter for a copyright claim", which implied your scenario was not that hypothetical example I posited. (A 1E-20 probability * maximum expected lawsuit payment with successful lawsuit = don't worry about that scenario.) We do know that the courts have decided many cases are de minimis non-infringing use of materials otherwise under copyright. Do you think there is no acceptable de minimis argument in software? If not, why is software somehow special compared to other areas of copyright? A "de minimis analysis ... usually focuses on the amount of the copyrighted material that is copied." - quoting http://patentarcade.com/2020/04/nba-2k-avoids-tattoo-copyright-infringement-in-three-ways.html http://patentarcade.com/2020/04/nba-2k-avoids-tattoo-copyrig... If 'de minimis' use exists in software, what realistic scenario are you thinking of where a single character is enough? To be clear, I think zero shared characters can still show copyright infringement, for reasons you mentioned about abstraction-filtration-comparison. But your "entirely possible" example had no other shared similarities beyond a single character, and I can't see how any court wouldn't think that was a de minimis use of that character - assuming it had copyright protections in the first place!

eesmith 5y ago

Your scenario was "If you copy a single character from a codebase that could could get nowhere but there". It was that "entirely possible" scenario I questioned. Not "roughly the same data types", "same variable names", "magic_code.seed(20154)", etc. I have no question with those. Those are enough characters that they may contain creative - and thus copyrightable - content. That is, I question your assertion that 'the "size" of the copying does not matter at all' by asking you to come up with an entirely possible scenario for why there is no de minimis case in software, even down to a single character, when there is in every other area of copyright. BTW, the WP page you pointed to notes that "Trap streets are not copyrightable under the federal law of the United States." Thus, "stole their IP" has no meaning - they have no copyright, trademark, patent, etc.

gravypod 5y ago
> I question your assertion that 'the "size" of the copying does not matter at all' by asking you to come up with an entirely possible scenario for why there is no de minimis case in software, even down to a single character, when there is in every other area of copyright. Where in copyright law for any area is there an established minimum "length"? I've never heard this nor heard lawyers claim of such a thing.
- eesmith 5y ago
  I never made that claim. I even posited a "super-APL" where a single character was enough to contain the creativity which is a prerequisite for copyright protection. Such a language does not exist, and I don't think it ever could, but there is a slightly-greater-than-0% chance that it could happen. OTOH, your original context for an "entirely possible" scenario at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27730596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27730596 was "The amount of copying does not matter for a copyright claim", which implied your scenario was not that hypothetical example I posited. (A 1E-20 probability * maximum expected lawsuit payment with successful lawsuit = don't worry about that scenario.) We do know that the courts have decided many cases are de minimis non-infringing use of materials otherwise under copyright. Do you think there is no acceptable de minimis argument in software? If not, why is software somehow special compared to other areas of copyright? A "de minimis analysis ... usually focuses on the amount of the copyrighted material that is copied." - quoting http://patentarcade.com/2020/04/nba-2k-avoids-tattoo-copyright-infringement-in-three-ways.html http://patentarcade.com/2020/04/nba-2k-avoids-tattoo-copyrig... If 'de minimis' use exists in software, what realistic scenario are you thinking of where a single character is enough? To be clear, I think zero shared characters can still show copyright infringement, for reasons you mentioned about abstraction-filtration-comparison. But your "entirely possible" example had no other shared similarities beyond a single character, and I can't see how any court wouldn't think that was a de minimis use of that character - assuming it had copyright protections in the first place!