Re: Justice draws nigh

[Hyman Rosen]

On 5/13/2010 12:19 PM, RJack wrote:
> the concept of specific intellectual property

It is the case, given US copyright law, that copying and
distributing a work which is a derivative work of another
even several generations removed, or copying and distributing
a combined work which contains a copyrighted work, requires
permission from the rights holder of that work. In the case
of BusyBox, BusyBox is a combined work containing works which
are themselves derivative works, and is itself a derivative
work created anew each time its contents are changed or
rearranged. It is the nature of software projects to throw
off many versions, and it is the nature of open projects to
have many authors. Comes time to assert a copyright claim,
sorting out what must be registered is complicated. But that
difficulty does not detract from the claim of infringement,
it merely requires guidance from the court on what needs to
be registered, and having that, registration can be done and
the case can proceed.