Is the GPL actually viral across dynamic linking?

Posted Nov 18, 2024 16:43 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Is the GPL actually viral across dynamic linking? by paulj
Parent article: Two approaches to tightening restrictions on loadable modules

> If I write a work of fiction, which builds on a universe you created in a work of fiction you wrote, such that to properly understand my work of fiction the reader really needs to have read your work of fiction so as to understand the characters, may I distribute my work of fiction without any regard for your copyright in your work of fiction? (I never distribute your work, and the "combination" of my work with yours only ever happens "dynamically" at "readtime" in the readers head).

That's often called FanFic, and/or "Classic Literature".

As a fan of pTerry, he often did that a lot. To truly understand Maskerade, you need to know Phantom of the Opera. To truly understand Wytches Abroad, you need to know Hamlet. As far as other authors / composers go, West Side Story may be a nice musical, but would you get the deeper meaning without knowing Romeo and Juliet? I love Miss Saigon, but much more is understood when you know Madame Butterfly. Etc etc.

The problem is, the answer is always "it depends". And it always helps to show that the work you depend on, itself depends on even deeper works. Both Hogwarts and Unseen University have a heavy dependence on works like the "Billy Bunter" books, and Greyfriars, and stuff like that. And as Ecclesiastes says, "there is nothing new under the sun", it shouldn't be that hard quite often to come up with evidence that copyright in stories isn't as obvious as people like to pretend ...

So why should programming be any different?

Cheers,
Wol

What is copyright in derived works?

Posted Dec 6, 2024 1:33 UTC (Fri) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]

> As a fan of pTerry, he often did that a lot. To truly understand Maskerade, you need to know Phantom of the Opera. To truly understand Wytches Abroad, you need to know Hamlet. As far as other authors / composers go, West Side Story may be a nice musical, but would you get the deeper meaning without knowing Romeo and Juliet? I love Miss Saigon, but much more is understood when you know Madame Butterfly. Etc etc.

I'm also aware that Phantom of the Opera, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Madam Butterfly are out of copyright. You can find legal copies of them on Project Gutenberg. So Pratchet's fine works are NOT violations of copyright for, among other reasons, the fact there's no copyright to violate. It also means the examples don't really throw any light on whether or not his writings would have been copyright violations IF those works were still under copyright. Courts (at least in the US) tend to go with the simplest conclusion to reach, and (traditionally) purposefully did NOT speculate on other reasoning that were irrelevant (i.e. in this case, whether or not it would have been a violation IF the preceding work were copyrighted), in order to avoid setting precedent.

> That's often called FanFic, and/or "Classic Literature".

And fanfic can certainly be violation of copyright. Try writing a Star Wars novel and publishing it without getting Disney (previously LucasFilms) license. Desilu was very tolerant of fanfic for Star Trek (not certain about current owners).

The dividing line between "copyright violation" and "no copyright violation" in derived works (and what constitutes a derived work), from my understanding, is something that's decided on a case by case basis by the courts in the US.

Note: IANAL