3 ms·

All those examples you give are transformative in some way or other. It's an interesting test of open source licensing because I'm not aware of any other area

All those examples you give are transformative in some way or other. It's an interesting test of open source licensing because I'm not aware of any other area of copyright where works come with an explicit "if you use this somewhere else you must credit me as the initial author" in the implied/provided license. Comparing music, literature, etc. to code is difficult because of both this difference and the existence of software patents. The manner in which infringement happens (and the scale) is often different as well.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
Actually, it might be challenging to programmers to grasp but it's a lot easier for a non technical judge. Same difference and easy comparison: Specific form and fair use. Nothing else matters. Two very simple concepts with a long history of being challenged in courts. There's nothing new here for a judge to consider. The specific form here is small blurbs of code that are suggested to end users by Github. Does that constitute a copyright violation? Answer no, because it's a small sample that falls under fair use. It doesn't matter whether it's music, literature, or code. Fair use is fair use. And it's been challenged so often that no judge is going to make any exceptions just because we are now dealing with software. End of story. No basis for any copyright infringement here. Not even worth trying out in a court because you'd be laughed away. The plaintiffs in this case clearly realized that and did not bother with even trying to prove otherwise. Software patents are not part of this court case either for the obvious reason that the vast majority of copyright holders in this case don't actually hold any patents whatsoever. And if they would, it would not be Github's problem but the problem of those creating possibly infringing products without a license. Github just gives people access to (public) knowledge here. That's what a patent is: public knowledge. It's up to the user to decide if they are OK shipping products that include that. And it's their problem to do any due diligence.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Actually, it might be challenging to programmers to grasp but it's a lot easier for a non technical judge. Same difference and easy comparison: Specific form and fair use. Nothing else matters. Two very simple concepts with a long history of being challenged in courts. There's nothing new here for a judge to consider. The specific form here is small blurbs of code that are suggested to end users by Github. Does that constitute a copyright violation? Answer no, because it's a small sample that falls under fair use. It doesn't matter whether it's music, literature, or code. Fair use is fair use. And it's been challenged so often that no judge is going to make any exceptions just because we are now dealing with software. End of story. No basis for any copyright infringement here. Not even worth trying out in a court because you'd be laughed away. The plaintiffs in this case clearly realized that and did not bother with even trying to prove otherwise. Software patents are not part of this court case either for the obvious reason that the vast majority of copyright holders in this case don't actually hold any patents whatsoever. And if they would, it would not be Github's problem but the problem of those creating possibly infringing products without a license. Github just gives people access to (public) knowledge here. That's what a patent is: public knowledge. It's up to the user to decide if they are OK shipping products that include that. And it's their problem to do any due diligence.