From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Consider the following situation....

Someone has published all the source for a project in C on GitHub.
There is no licence statement, just a copyright notice with the date and author's name.

If I take the source and clone the functions so they have the same
prototypes but write them in assembler and have the same flow, is this a derivative work? Or is the assembler version my work to licence how I
feel?

What do people think?

Andy
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> wrote:

Consider the following situation....

Someone has published all the source for a project in C on GitHub.
There is no licence statement, just a copyright notice with the date and author's name.

If I take the source and clone the functions so they have the same prototypes but write them in assembler and have the same flow, is this a derivative work? Or is the assembler version my work to licence how I
feel?

What do people think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.

"1. The nature of the copyrighted work: Breyer's analysis identified that
APIs served as declaring code rather than implementation, and that in
context of copyright, it served an "organization function" similar to the
Dewey Decimal System, in which fair use is more applicable."

In that case Google outright copied the code and mechanically stripped out everything but the prototypes, so in your example the link is even less
strong.

Other jurisdictions may have differing opinions.

Theo
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> wrote:

Consider the following situation....

Someone has published all the source for a project in C on GitHub.
There is no licence statement, just a copyright notice with the date and author's name.

Under US law, that means the author holds the copyright, and has not
granted anyone else any rights to copies.

If I take the source and clone the functions so they have the same prototypes but write them in assembler and have the same flow, is this a derivative work?

If this is more than a hypothetical question, then you should consult
with an attorney. Reality is, whether it is deravitive will depend
upon the author filing a suit, and a court finding that it is a
derivative.

Or is the assembler version my work to licence how I feel?

Given your senario, the new work is questionable, and it would likely
take a lawsuit to settle the question.

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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> wrote or quoted:

If I take the source and clone the functions so they have the same >prototypes but write them in assembler and have the same flow, is this a >derivative work? Or is the assembler version my work to licence how I
feel?

"Writing them in assembler with the same flow" might be nothing
more than compiling and disassembling.

You also could ask an AI chatbot to write code for you.
AFAIK this can be used by you as if it was not coprighted.

I sometimes wonder about copright when you copy and then
change. Say, you copy this copyrighted program:

A = 2

. (It's too short to be copyrighted, but it serves here to
represent a much longer piece of code.) You make a little
change to it:

B = 2

. Later you change it into:

B = 7

. Now your program clearly has nothing to do with the original
anymore. You just used that to get started but then gradually
transformed it into your own code. So, is "B = 7" now free from
any copyright of the original author of "A = 2"? At what point
during the transition exactly did the copyright disappear?


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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

. Now your program clearly has nothing to do with the original
anymore. You just used that to get started but then gradually
transformed it into your own code. So, is "B = 7" now free from
any copyright of the original author of "A = 2"? At what point
during the transition exactly did the copyright disappear?

Your last question is the key, and (under US law) is something that can
only ultimately be determined by a court case. The reason why is that
the law around copyright decides "infringement" based on factors such
as:

The nature of the change;
The amount of change made;
The use of the changed code;
The effect of the copy upon the market value of the original;
etc.

And, you'll notice a disconcerting issue with all of those factors.
They are not absolute binary decisions (is 2 less than 4). They are subjective judgement calls. And barring the invention of a "copyright
AI oracle", the true subjectiveness (meaning did, or did not infringe)
can only be determined by a court during a lawsuit.
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