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Subject: Re: [boost] Legal problem with Stackoverflow contribution under the "Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0" license
From: Tim Song (t.canens.cpp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-02-20 01:55:57


On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:48 PM, Niall Douglas via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> On 19/02/2018 22:57, Tim Song via Boost wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 3:41 PM, Niall Douglas via Boost
>> <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>> But it's a non-point. If you follow the full discussion of the reuse of
>>> snippets on stackoverflow, reuse of small pieces of code which are not
>>> self standing programs, or functionality in themselves, is not copyright
>>> infringement in most jurisdictions. cf
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc. after
>>> all.
>>
>> In which the courts found copyright infringement over a nine-line
>> literally copied rangeCheck function.
>
> That was the jury's verdict in the first case. The judge overrode that
> in a ruling which can be read at
> http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf. In that he lays out the
> many cases where copyright cannot be infringed on a snippet, and the
> importance of originality as far as copyright is concerned.
>

The judge most certainly did not override the jury on the rangeCheck issue.

And that opinion you cite - dealing with the copyrightability of APIs
- is overturned on appeal.


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