5 ms·
No, clean rooms are a mechanism that allows a team to avoid copyright infringement by ensuring that the developers have never seen the copyrighted code.
by kevinmchugh 3y ago
No, clean rooms are a mechanism that allows a team to avoid copyright infringement by ensuring that the developers have never seen the copyrighted code.
- sandworm101 3y agoThe code avoids copyright, if it is actually different. The end product doesn't if it is still similar to the copyrighted work. Use a computer to rewrite Harry Potter all you want, but if it comes up with the same book it doesn't matter how you got there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- marcinzm 3y agoThat's not a clean room implementation. A clean room would be having a description for the game of quidditch (game rules are not copyrightable just like specifications for software) and then writing a background story to explain it without ever having read a single word of Harry Potter. If that comes out anywhere similar to the Harry Potter books I'd be utterly amazed.
- sandworm101 3y ago>> If that comes out anywhere similar to the Harry Potter books I'd be utterly amazed. Considering that "Harry Potter" is not an uncommon name in the UK (I've met two) nor is the concept of a wizard school, or riding broomsticks, or house teams, I suspect that AI today might be able to generate something that would get Rowling's attention.
- marcinzm 3y agoRowling has been sued multiple times for the similarity of Harry Potter to previous books using those themes. She won every time. The bar for copyright infringement is not "a single piece of the book is similar" or even "a one sentence summary of the two is similar."
- kevinmchugh 3y agoIn Sony v Connectix a judge found that software designed for compatibility deserved less protection than literary works.