gnu-misc-discuss
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- track record


From: Tim Smith
Subject: Re: SFLC's GPL court enforcement -- track record
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:39:22 -0700
User-agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b2 (Intel Mac OS X)

In article <8_Qxk.3001$dE1.2617@fe109.usenetserver.com>,
 Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:
> David Kastrup wrote:
> > You got a bad case of slandries.
> 
>  From <http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080909014304275>,
> quoting from the decision:
> 
>      By condensing, synthesizing, and reorganizing the preexisting
>      material in an A-to-Z reference guide, the Lexicon does not
>      recast the material in another medium to retell the story of
>      Harry Potter, but instead gives the copyrighted material another
>      purpose. That purpose is to give the reader a ready understanding
>      of individual elements in the elaborate world of Harry Potter
>      that appear in voluminous and diverse sources. As a result, the
>      Lexicon no longer "represents [the] original work[s] of
>      authorship." 17 U.S.C. ยง 101. Under these circumstances, and
>      because the Lexicon does not fall under any example of derivative
>      works listed in the statute, Plaintiffs have failed to show that
>      the Lexicon is a derivative work.
> 
> Look at this, and then tell me that a court will find that a program
> which dynamically links to a library is a derivative work of that
> library.

Or look at the unauthorized game cartridge cases.  Those are directly on 
point for the "linking makes a derivative work" argument, and the courts 
have pretty uniformly decided that they are not derivative works.

-- 
--Tim Smith


reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]