80-596: The LaTeX Project Public License ( LPPL ) is a software license originally written for the LaTeX system. Software distributed under the terms of the LPPL can be regarded as free software ; however, it is not copylefted . Besides the LaTeX base system, the LPPL is also used for most third-party LaTeX packages. Software projects other than LaTeX rarely use it. The LPPL grew from Donald Knuth 's original license for TeX, which states that
160-563: A "concrete or permanent form,"....The requirement that a derivative work must assume a concrete or permanent form was recognized without much discussion in Galoob . Even if a work is found to be an unauthorized derivative work, an alleged infringer can escape liability via the defense of fair use . For example, in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. , the Supreme Court found that although a parody of
240-454: A House Report, Congress said: The exclusive right to prepare derivative works, specified separately in clause (2) of section 106, overlaps the exclusive right of reproduction to some extent. It is broader than that right, however, in the sense that reproduction requires fixation in copies or phonorecords, whereas the preparation of a derivative work, such as a ballet, pantomime, or improvised performance, may be an infringement even though nothing
320-470: A coin; when the user presses a lever, Uncle Sam appears to put the coin into a carpet bag. One maker of these banks, Jeffrey Snyder, had filed a copyright on such a bank in 1975, planning to import them for the American Bicentennial. Shortly thereafter, another company, L. Batlin & Sons, Inc., also began making a very similar toy bank which was based on Snyder's version (and not, incidentally, on
400-418: A company can restrict the parties to which it sells but it cannot prevent a buyer from reselling the product. Software licensing agreements usually prohibit resale, enabling the company to maximize revenue. Traditionally, software was distributed in the form of binary object code that could not be understood or modified by the user, but could be downloaded and run. The user bought a perpetual license to use
480-506: A compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material. 17 U.S.C. § 106 provides: Subject to sections 107 through 122,
560-726: A component of their proprietary software. The decision to use open-source software, or even engage with open-source projects to improve existing open-source software, is typically a pragmatic business decision. When proprietary software is in direct competition with an open-source alternative, research has found conflicting results on the effect of the competition on the proprietary product's price and quality. For decades, some companies have made servicing of an open-source software product for enterprise users as their business model. These companies control an open-source software product, and instead of charging for licensing or use, charge for improvements, integration, and other servicing. Software as
640-447: A copyright-protected derivative work to come into existence; (2) what acts constitute copyright infringement of a copyright in a copyright-protected work; and (3) in what circumstances is a person otherwise liable for infringement of copyright in a copyright-protected derivative work excused from liability by an affirmative defense, such as first sale or fair use ? French law prefers the term "œuvre composite" ("composite work") although
720-405: A copyrighted work - by selling note cards, for instance, or giving them away - it does not permit the copyright holder to control what is done with the item after it is distributed. Unless there is a separate contract between the parties, the person who owns the object has the right to give it away or resell it themself. In the case of Lee v. A.R.T. , since bonding the cards to ceramic did not create
800-506: A copyrighted work is used without the permission of the copyright owner, copyright protection will not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully. The courts have so far addressed little attention to the issue of lawful (i.e., not unlawful) use without authorization, as in fair-use cases such as the Pretty Woman case. Recently, however, in Keeling v. Hars ,
880-414: A customer agreed if they did not return the product within a specified interval. More recently, EULAs are most commonly found as clickwrap or browsewrap where the user's clicks or continued browsing are taken as a sign of agreement. As a result of the end of physical constraints, length increased. Most EULAs have been designed so that it is very difficult to read and understand them, but easy to agree to
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#1732852496039960-532: A derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to
1040-455: A derivative work, A.R.T. Co. was legally within their rights to resell the cards in such a fashion. When the defendant's modification of the plaintiff's work is de minimis , too insubstantial to "count", there is no infringing preparation of a derivative work. So long as there is no derivative work, there is no infringement—since no conduct that the Copyright Act forbids has occurred. In
1120-563: A dramatic work, by way of performance in public or otherwise, ( d ) in the case of a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make any sound recording, cinematograph film or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically reproduced or performed, ( e ) in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to reproduce, adapt and publicly present the work as a cinematographic work In Théberge v. Galerie d'Art du Petit Champlain Inc. , [2002] 2 S.C.R. 336 , 2002 SCC 34,
1200-594: A matter of derivative works in Systran v. European Commission (Case T‑19/07 ). However, it was overturned in 2013 based on the conclusion that the case did not fall within the General Court's jurisdiction, after concluding that the dispute had been of a contractual nature, instead of a non-contractual one. Though Canadian copyright law does not explicitly define "derivative work", the Copyright Act of Canada does provide
1280-481: A particular version of the software. Software as service (SaaS) vendors—who have the majority market share in application software as of 2023 —rarely offer perpetual licenses. SaaS licenses are usually temporary and charged on a pay-per-usage or subscription basis, although other revenue models such as freemium are also used. For customers, the advantages of temporary licenses include reduced upfront cost, increased flexibility, and lower overall cost compared to
1360-508: A permissive license. Some weak copyleft licenses can be used under the GPL and are said to be GPL-compatible. GPL software can only be used under the GPL or AGPL. Free and open-source software licenses have been successfully enforced in civil court since the mid-2000s. Courts have found that distributing software indicates acceptance of the license's terms. However, developers typically achieve compliance without lawsuits. Social pressures , such as
1440-413: A perpetual license. In some cases, the steep one-time cost demanded by sellers of traditional software were out of the reach of smaller businesses , but pay-per-use SaaS models makes the software affordable. Initially, end-user license agreements (EULAs) were printed on either the shrinkwrap packaging encasing the product (see shrink-wrap contract ) or a piece of paper. The license often stipulated that
1520-461: A preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable. The statutory definition is incomplete and the concept of derivative work must be understood with reference to explanatory case law . Three major copyright law issues arise concerning derivative works: (1) what acts are sufficient to cause
1600-622: A rote, uncreative variation on the earlier, underlying work. The latter work must contain sufficient new expression, over and above that embodied in the earlier work for the latter work to satisfy copyright law's requirement of originality . Although serious emphasis on originality, at least so designated, began with the Supreme Court's 1991 decision in Feist v. Rural , some pre- Feist lower court decisions addressed this requirement in relation to derivative works. In Durham Industries, Inc. v. Tomy Corp. and earlier in L. Batlin & Son, Inc. v. Snyder .
1680-436: A second, separate work independent from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality sufficiently to be original and thus protected by copyright . Translations , cinematic adaptations and musical arrangements are common types of derivative works. Most countries' legal systems seek to protect both original and derivative works. They grant authors
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#17328524960391760-486: A service (SaaS) products based on open-source components are increasingly common. Open-source software is preferred for scientific applications, because it increases transparency and aids in the validation and acceptance of scientific results. Derivative work In copyright law , a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of a first, previously created original work (the underlying work ). The derivative work becomes
1840-472: A translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work". 17 U.S.C. § 103(b) provides: The copyright in
1920-467: A use was fair use: "We conclude that where disassembly is the only way to gain access to the ideas and functional elements embodied in a copyrighted computer program and where there is a legitimate reason for seeking such access, disassembly is a fair use of the copyrighted work, as a matter of law." However, since the passage of the anti-circumvention statutes contained in the DMCA , further court cases involving
2000-585: Is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Since the 1970s, software copyright has been recognized in the United States. Despite the copyright being recognized, most companies prefer to sell licenses rather than copies of the software because it enables them to enforce stricter terms on redistribution. Very few purchasers read any part of the license, initially shrink-wrap contracts and now most commonly encountered as clickwrap or browsewrap . The enforceability of this kind of license
2080-419: Is a matter of controversy and is limited in some jurisdictions. Service-level agreements are another type of software license where the vendor agrees to provide a level of service to the purchaser, often backed by financial penalties. Copyleft is a type of free license that mandates derivative works to be licensed. The other types of free license lack this requirement: for permissive licenses , attribution
2160-429: Is ever fixed in tangible form. The 9th Circuit, however, has resisted this expansive view of liability for derivative works by imposing its own quasi-fixation requirement. In Micro Star v. FormGen Inc. Judge Kozinski wrote: To narrow the statute to a manageable level, we have developed certain criteria a work must satisfy in order to qualify as a derivative work. One of these is that a derivative work must exist in
2240-411: Is made available for noncommercial use only is not considered open source. Sun Microsystems ' noncommercial-only Java Research License was rejected by the open-source community, and in 2006 the company released most of Java under the GPL. Since 1989, a variety of open-source licenses for software have been created. Choosing an open-source software license has grown increasingly difficult due to
2320-415: Is no longer able to be contacted, by the individual taking over maintenance, with a three-month gap after their public intention to take over the maintenance. The modifying clause discussed above does not hold for the current maintainer of the work. The LaTeX project holds the copyright for the text of the LPPL, but it does not necessarily hold the copyright for a work released under the LPPL. The author of
2400-458: Is typically the only requirement, and public-domain-equivalent licenses have no restrictions. The proliferation of open-source licenses has compounded license compatibility issues, but all share some features: allowing redistribution and derivative works under the same license, unrestricted access to the source code , and nondiscrimination between different uses—in particular, allowing commercial use. The source code (or compiled binaries in
2480-550: The Harvard Law Review , "Toward a Fair Use Standard", which the Court quoted and cited extensively in its Campbell opinion. In his article, Leval explained the social importance of transformative use of another's work and what justifies such a taking: I believe the answer to the question of justification turns primarily on whether, and to what extent, the challenged use is transformative. The use must be productive and must employ
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2560-541: The Campbell case. In parody, as the Court explained, the transformativeness is the new insight that readers, listeners, or viewers gain from the parodic treatment of the original work. As the Court pointed out, the words of the parody "derisively demonstrat[e] how bland and banal the Orbison [Pretty Woman] song" is. The modern emphasis of transformativeness in fair use analysis stems from a 1990 article by Judge Pierre N. Leval in
2640-407: The proliferation of licenses , many of which are only trivially distinct. Many licenses are incompatible with each other, hampering the goals of the free software movement. Translation issues, ambiguity in licensing terms, and incompatibility of some licenses with the law in certain jurisdictions compounds the problem. Although downloading an open-source module is quick and easy, complying with
2720-418: The virtual worlds of video games . Most disclaim any liability for harms caused by the product, and prevent the purchaser from accessing the court system to seek a remedy. Furthermore, many EULAs allow the vendor to change the terms at any time and the customer must choose between agreeing or ceasing use of the product, without getting a refund. It is common for EULAs to allow unilateral termination by
2800-590: The 19th century original). When the latter attempted to import the toy banks, the US Customs service notified them that they appeared to be infringing on Snyder's copyright, and would not allow the toy banks to be imported. Batlin then got an injunction against Snyder to deny the recording of his copyright and allowing them to import their banks. On appeal to the Second Circuit Court, Snyder took great pains to demonstrate how his banks varied in size and shape from
2880-406: The 19th century original, arguing that his banks, though similar to the older work, differed in a number of significant ways and warranted protection under a new copyright. However, his appeal was denied and the injunction against Snyder's copyright upheld (six members of the court voted to deny, the other three filing a dissenting opinion). Much of this decision focused on the fact that nearly all of
2960-609: The Second Circuit held that a derivative work must be original relative to the underlying work on which it is based. Otherwise, it cannot enjoy copyright protection and copying it will not infringe any copyright of the derivative work itself (although copying it may infringe the copyright, if any, of the underlying work on which the derivative work was based). The Batlin case rested on the copyrightability of an "Uncle Sam" toy bank, first copyrighted in 1886. These toys have Uncle Sam's extended arm and outstretched hand adapted to receive
3040-404: The Second Circuit held that, if the creator of an unauthorized work stays within the bounds of fair use and adds sufficient original content, the original contributions in such an unauthorized derivative work are protectable under the Copyright Act. In that case, the plaintiff created a parody stage adaptation of a motion picture, without authorization. This issue sometimes arises in the context of
3120-474: The Supreme Court of Canada clarified the statutory recognition of derivative works extended only to circumstances where there was production and multiplication, i.e. reproduction . Where there is no derivation, reproduction, or production of a new and original work which incorporates the artist's work, there is no violation of the Copyright Act. Derivative works represent the majority of the human cultural, scientific and technological heritage, as exemplified by
3200-663: The United States, clickwrap or browsewrap licenses were not held to be binding, but since then they often have been. Under the New Digital Content Directive effective in the European Union, EULAs are only enforceable to the extent that they do not breach reasonable consumer expectations. The gap between expectations and the content of EULAs is especially wide when it comes to restrictions on copying and transferring ownership of digital content. Many EULAs contain stipulations that are likely unenforceable depending on
3280-414: The agreed standard. SLAs often cover such aspects as availability, reliability, price, and security using quantifiable metrics. Multi-tier SLAs are common in cloud computing because of the use of different computing services that may be managed by different companies. SLAs in cloud computing are an area under active research as of 2024 . Before the open-source movement in the 1980s, almost all software
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3360-481: The alterations in Snyder's version were made solely to allow the object to be more easily manufactured in plastic rather than metal, and therefore were functional, not artistic or creative. "To extend copyrightability to minuscule variations would simply put a weapon for harassment in the hands of mischievous copiers intent on appropriating and monopolizing public domain work." The issue was not whether or not Batlin's bank
3440-482: The appellate court held that it was a fair use for owners of copies of video games, such as Super Mario Bros. , to use Galoob's product the Game Genie to customize the difficulty or other characteristics of the game by granting a character more strength, speed, or endurance. Nintendo strongly opposed Galoob's product, allegedly because it interfered with the maintenance of the "Nintendo Culture," which Nintendo claimed
3520-487: The bare license interpretation, advocated by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a case is brought to court by the copyright holder as copyright infringement . Under the contract interpretation, a case can be brought to court by an involved party as a breach of contract . United States and French courts have tried cases under both interpretations. More than 90 percent of companies use open-source software as
3600-435: The claim. Thus the law is clear that a derivative work is protectable only to the extent that it embodies original expression. Its non-original aspects are not copyright-protectable (what is loosely called "uncopyrightable"). In both of these cases, the defendants were held not to be liable for copyright infringement, even though they presumably copied a considerable amount from the plaintiff's work. They were not liable because
3680-487: The company that makes the software, not the employees or contractors who wrote it. The tendency to license proprietary software , rather than sell it, dates from the time period before the existence, then the scope of software copyright protection was clear . These licenses have continued in use after software copyright was recognized in the courts, and are considered to grant the company extra protection compared to copyright law. According to United States federal law ,
3760-478: The court excused Accolade from copyright infringement liability on fair use grounds. Nintendo and Sega produced video game consoles. Each stored the games in plastic cartridges that provided game data to the consoles. By way of analogy, the Sega hardware console's "platform" differed from Nintendo's, as a Macintosh platform differs from that of a PC . Hence, a video game cartridge that works on one system does not work on
3840-555: The defendant purchasing a copy of a picture or some other work from the copyright owner or a licensee and then reselling it in different context. For example, pictures from greeting cards might be affixed to tiles or one kind of textile product might be turned into another that can be sold at a higher price. In Lee v. A.R.T. Co. , (the Annie Lee case), the defendant affixed the copyright owner's copyright-protected note cards and small lithographs to tiles and then resold them. The original art
3920-420: The downloading was improper copying (reproduction) of Sega's code. The court held that Sega was trying to use the copyright in its computer code to maintain a monopoly over the sale of video games, to which it was not legally entitled. Accolade downloaded the computer code only to ascertain how the lock worked, so that it could make a key that would permit its games to work in Sega consoles. The court held that such
4000-407: The fair-use defense of such activities have yet to be actually litigated. A crucial factor in current legal analysis of derivative works is transformativeness , largely as a result of the Supreme Court's 1994 decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. The Court's opinion emphasized the importance of transformativeness in its fair use analysis of the parody of " Oh, Pretty Woman " involved in
4080-416: The following generally agreed-upon examples of what constitutes a derivative work in section 3 : "copyright"...includes the sole right ( a ) to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work, ( b ) in the case of a dramatic work, to convert it into a novel or other non-dramatic work, ( c ) in the case of a novel or other non-dramatic work, or of an artistic work, to convert it into
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#17328524960394160-399: The form of object code ) of a computer program is protected by copyright law that vests the owner with the exclusive right to copy the code. The underlying ideas or algorithms are not protected by copyright law, but are often treated as a trade secret and concealed by such methods as non-disclosure agreements . Software copyright has been recognized since the mid-1970s and is vested in
4240-413: The jurisdiction. Software vendors keep these unenforceable provisions in the agreements, perhaps because users rarely resort to the legal system to challenge them. Service-level agreements are often used for enterprise software and guarantee a level of service, such as software performance or time to respond to issue raised by the customer. Many stipulate financial penalties if the service falls short of
4320-421: The licensing terms can be more difficult. The amount of software dependencies means that engineers working on complex projects must often rely on software license management software in order to help them achieve compliance with the licensing terms of open-source components. Many open-source software files do not unambiguously state the license, increasing the difficulties of compliance. When combining code bases,
4400-445: The licensing terms without reading them. Regardless of how easy it is to access, very few consumers read any part of the license agreement. Most assume the terms are unobjectionable or barely notice agreeing while installing the software. Companies take advantage of consumers' inattention to insert provisions into EULAs. Proprietary software is usually offered under a restrictive license that bans copying and reuse and often limits
4480-481: The main author of the license: "LPPL attempts to preserve the fact that something like LaTeX is a language which is used for communication, that is if you write a LaTeX document you expect to be able to send it to me and to work at my end like it does at yours". The most unusual part of the LPPL ;– and equally the most controversial – used to be the 'filename clause': You must not distribute
4560-497: The modified file with the filename of the original file. This feature made some people deny that the LPPL is a free software license . In particular the Debian community considered in 2003 excluding LaTeX from its core distribution because of this. However, version 1.3 of the LPPL has weakened this restriction. Now it is only necessary that modified components identify themselves "clearly and unambiguously" as modified versions, both in
4640-426: The original licenses can be maintained for separate components, and the larger work released under a compatible license. This compatibility is often one-way. Public domain content can be used anywhere as there is no copyright claim, but code acquired under any almost any set of terms cannot be waved to the public domain. Permissive licenses can be used within copyleft works, but copyleft material cannot be released under
4720-722: The other. Sega and Nintendo sought to "license" access to their hardware platforms, and each company developed software "locks" to keep out cartridges that did not have the proper "key." Accolade sought a license from Sega for its key, but negotiations broke down over price. Accolade then decided to reverse engineer Sega's lock and key system. To do so, it had to download (copy) all of the computer code from Sega's product and disassemble it (translate it from machine code into human-readable assembly). Accolade succeeded and began to market new video games that it independently wrote, which were capable of being operated in Sega consoles. This led to copyright infringement litigation, in which Sega alleged that
4800-463: The owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies...; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies...of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.... US Copyright Office Circular 14: Derivative Works notes that: A typical example of
4880-437: The plaintiff did not enjoy copyright protection. The plaintiffs' works lacked enough originality to acquire copyright protection of their own. They were too close to the original works on which they were based. Copyright ownership in a derivative work attaches only if the derivative work is lawful, because of a license or other "authorization." The U.S. Copyright Office says in its circular on derivative works: In any case where
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#17328524960394960-522: The potential for community backlash, are often sufficient. Cease and desist letters are a common method to bring companies back into compliance, especially in Germany. A long-debated subject within the FOSS community is whether open-source licenses are "bare licenses" or contracts . A bare license is a set of conditions under which actions otherwise restricted by intellectual property laws are permitted. Under
5040-489: The prototypical Mickey, Donald, and Pluto, authored by Disney and subsequently represented by Disney or its licensees in a seemingly limitless variety of forms and media." Because the court considered that "it is clear that the originality requirement imposed by the Constitution and the Copyright Act has particular significance in the case of derivative works based on copyrighted preexisting works," it denied relief and dismissed
5120-445: The proverb about " standing on the shoulders of giants ." The number of derivative works has been adversely impacted by the introduction of the copyright law, which made them illegal in numerous circumstances, and positively by the spread of the copyleft ethos in the late 20th and early 21st century. For copyright protection to attach to a later, allegedly derivative work, it must display some originality of its own. It cannot be
5200-416: The purchaser to using the software on one computer. Source code is rarely available. Derivative software works and reverse engineering are usually explicitly prohibited. Many EULAs allow the vendor to collect information about the user and use it in unrestricted ways. Some EULAs restrict the ability of users to exercise copyright over derivative work made using the software, such as creative creations in
5280-441: The quoted matter in a different manner or for a different purpose from the original. ...[If] the secondary use adds value to the original--if the quoted matter is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings--this is the very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the enrichment of society. Transformative uses may include criticizing
5360-683: The quoted work, exposing the character of the original author, proving a fact, or summarizing an idea argued in the original in order to defend or rebut it. They also may include parody, symbolism, aesthetic declarations, and innumerable other uses. The concept, as Leval and the Campbell Court described it, developed in relation to fair use of traditional works: literary works, musical works, and pictorial works. But recently courts have extended this rationale to Internet and computer-related works. In such cases, as illustrated by Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation and Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. ,
5440-490: The right to impede or otherwise control their integrity and the author's commercial interests. Derivative works and their authors benefit in turn from the full protection of copyright without prejudicing the rights of the original work's author. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works , an international copyright treaty , stipulates that derivative works shall be protected although it does not use
5520-489: The song " Oh, Pretty Woman " by 2 Live Crew was an unauthorized derivative work, fair use was still available as a complete defense. This case marked the Supreme Court's pointing to transformativeness as a major clue to application of the fair use defense to derivative works. The defense of fair use has become very important in computer- and Internet-related works. Two 1992 Ninth Circuit decisions are illustrative. In Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. ,
5600-411: The source and also when called in some sort of interactive mode. A name change of the work is still recommended, however. In order to provide project continuity in the case that the copyright holder no longer wishes to maintain the work, maintenance can be passed on to another (or from maintainer to maintainer). This can either be declared by the copyright holder or, in the event that the copyright holder
5680-443: The source code for TeX may be used for any purpose but a system built with it can only be called 'TeX' if it strictly conforms to his canonical program. The incentive for this provision was to ensure that documents written for TeX will be readable for the foreseeable future – and TeX and its extensions will still compile documents written from the early 1980s to produce output exactly as intended. Quoting Frank Mittelbach,
5760-480: The term '"œuvre dérivée" is sometimes used. It is defined in article L 113-2, paragraph 2 of the Intellectual Property Code as "new works into which pre-existing work [is incorporated], without the collaboration of its author". The Court of Cassation has interpreted this statute as requiring two distinct inputs at different points in time. The Court of Justice of the European Union in 2010 decided on
5840-494: The term, namely that "Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work". An extensive definition of the term is given by the United States Copyright Act in 17 U.S.C. § 101 : A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as
5920-412: The vendor for any number of vague reasons or none at all. EULAs, almost always offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis as a non-negotiable condition for using the software, are very far from the prototypical contract where both parties fully understand the terms and agree of their own free will. There has been substantial debate on to what extent the agreements can be considered binding. Before 1996 in
6000-422: The work holds copyright for the work, and is responsible for enforcing any violations of the license (or not). Unlike the works released under the LPPL, the LPPL itself is not freely modifiable. While copying and distribution is allowed, changing the text of the LPPL is not. However, it may be used as a model for other licenses provided they do not reference the LPPL. Software license A software license
6080-459: Was a copy of Snyder's— it undoubtedly was— but whether or not Snyder could claim copyright protection, which the court decided he could not. In the subsequent Durham case, the court applied the same principle in a suit between two different Disney toy licensees in which one licensee claimed that the other had pirated his Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck and Pluto . Durham conceded that in making these toys it used Tomy's Disney figures as models. That
6160-442: Was important to its marketing program. The court held, among other things, that the fair use defense shielded Galoob's conduct. The court said that "a party who distributes a copyrighted work cannot dictate how that work is to be enjoyed. Consumers may use ... a Game Genie to enhance a Nintendo Game cartridge's audiovisual display in such a way as to make the experience more enjoyable." In Sega Enterprises, Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc. ,
6240-401: Was not changed or reproduced, only bonded to ceramic and sold. The court held that this act was not original and creative enough to rise to the level of creating a derivative work, but effectively similar to any other form of display or art frame. Distribution rights differ from reproduction rights. While the first-sale doctrine entitles the copyright holder to begin the distribution chain of
6320-423: Was not determinative. The court said that "the only aspects of Tomy's Disney figures entitled to copyright protection are the non-trivial, original features, if any, contributed by the author or creator of these derivative works." But Tomy's toys reflected "no independent creation, no distinguishable variation from preexisting works, nothing recognizably the author's own contribution that sets Tomy's figures apart from
6400-583: Was proprietary and did not disclose its source code . Open-source licensing is intended to maximize openness and minimize barriers to software use, dissemination, and follow-on innovation. Open-source licenses share a number of key characteristics: The Open Source Initiative vets and approves new open-source licenses that comply with its Open Source Definition . Outside of software, noncommercial-only Creative Commons licenses have become popular among some artists who wish to prevent others from profiting excessively from their work. However, software that
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