tiger wrote:Contrary to what has been said here several times, and that I even thought to be true, you cannot easily escape copyright infringement by taking a program and rewriting small pieces of it one by one until everything has been rewritten.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
So now what? Are you going to remove the idea's taken from Fruit 2.1 in Chess Tiger? Or aren't there any?
tiger wrote:Contrary to what has been said here several times, and that I even thought to be true, you cannot easily escape copyright infringement by taking a program and rewriting small pieces of it one by one until everything has been rewritten.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
So now what? Are you going to remove the idea's taken from Fruit 2.1 in Chess Tiger? Or aren't there any?
Ed
I have taken nothing from Fruit. And ideas are not copyrightable.anyway.
tiger wrote:Contrary to what has been said here several times, and that I even thought to be true, you cannot easily escape copyright infringement by taking a program and rewriting small pieces of it one by one until everything has been rewritten.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
So now what? Are you going to remove the idea's taken from Fruit 2.1 in Chess Tiger? Or aren't there any?
Ed
I have taken nothing from Fruit. And ideas are not copyrightable.anyway.
// Christophe
The web-site you quoted (see above in red) does imply it's forbidden to recode idea's. Quite confusing thread you started.
Dr.Wael Deeb wrote:You will never give up Christophe,won't you
Mean isn't it
Actually further in the quasi-legal opinion he offers is the below text on the ptotection offered by copyright.
The section: "The element’s expression was dictated by external factors, such as using an existing file format or interoperating with another program." might well be covering the discredited case of the UCI code, go_parser.
It also does not protect the functional aspects of the program, just its expression. But it is much easier to state that rule than determine how to apply it, since a computer program combines expression and functionality much, much more than any other copyrighted work. The most-accepted way of determining whether something is unprotectable function or protectable expression is the abstraction-filtration-comparison test, which, after determining a number of parts of the program to consider (abstraction), filters out elements not protectable by copyright, and then compares the remaining elements to determine if they are similar.
Elements are filtered because:
· The element’s expression was dictated by reasons of efficiency, such as when it is the best way of performing a particular function.
· The element’s expression was dictated by external factors, such as using an existing file format or interoperating with another program.
· The element’s expression is a conventional way of writing something in the particular programming language or machine running the program.
· The element, at the particular level of abstraction, is an unprotectable process and not protectable expression.
· The element is taken from the public domain, or is an unprotectable fact.
When writing a program similar to an existing program, you can copy any element of that program that would be filtered without infringing the copyright of the existing program. But you have to worry if you are using too many of the filtered elements. It could be that the selection or arrangement of a large number of filtered elements could itself have sufficient originality to warrant copyright protection. Remember, in the abstraction-filtration-comparison test, abstraction is done before any filtration of elements at a particular level of abstraction, and elements that may be filtered out at one level may be of primary importance at another.
tiger wrote:Contrary to what has been said here several times, and that I even thought to be true, you cannot easily escape copyright infringement by taking a program and rewriting small pieces of it one by one until everything has been rewritten.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
So now what? Are you going to remove the idea's taken from Fruit 2.1 in Chess Tiger? Or aren't there any?
Ed
I have taken nothing from Fruit. And ideas are not copyrightable.anyway.
// Christophe
The web-site you quoted (see above in red) does imply it's forbidden to recode idea's. Quite confusing thread you started.
Ed
I don't see what is confusing.
It has been said several times that when you type the last character of your rewrite, then your rewrite is "clean" and free from copyright.
As explained above this is not true.
In theory, because each intermediary version was protected by copyright, then your final version is also. You know it because as the "rewritter" you know exactly the process you have followed and because copyright also applies to material that has not formally been registered.
In practice, you may get away with it IF you lie AND one of your intermediate version never surfaces AND you have rewritten enough so that a court will think it is an original work.
Risky business.
Want to be safe? Just don't start from copyrighted material.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
You quoted the above and concluded:
tiger wrote:And ideas are not copyrightable.anyway.
The text reads different, thus confusing.
tiger wrote: It has been said several times that when you type the last character of your rewrite, then your rewrite is "clean" and free from copyright.
As explained above this is not true.
In theory, because each intermediary version was protected by copyright, then your final version is also. You know it because as the "rewritter" you know exactly the process you have followed and because copyright also applies to material that has not formally been registered.
Something to ponder about: in 1996/97 I posted in RGCC how to recognize and evaluate caught bishops (a7/h7) (a2/h2). I found the exact code back in Fruit 2.1 10 years later. How so copyright?
And what about A/B, hashtables, windowing techniques, PVS, killers, LMR and and and... Is this all suddenly copyrighted because Fabien put Fruit under a GPL licence? I don't think so.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
You quoted the above and concluded:
tiger wrote:And ideas are not copyrightable.anyway.
The text reads different, thus confusing.
tiger wrote: It has been said several times that when you type the last character of your rewrite, then your rewrite is "clean" and free from copyright.
As explained above this is not true.
In theory, because each intermediary version was protected by copyright, then your final version is also. You know it because as the "rewritter" you know exactly the process you have followed and because copyright also applies to material that has not formally been registered.
Something to ponder about: in 1996/97 I posted in RGCC how to recognize and evaluate caught bishops (a7/h7) (a2/h2). I found the exact code back in Fruit 2.1 10 years later. How so copyright?
And what about A/B, hashtables, windowing techniques, PVS, killers, LMR and and and... Is this all suddenly copyrighted because Fabien put Fruit under a GPL licence? I don't think so.
Ed
Ed, why did you leave us alone? You could have saved us much nonsense. Give us some corrections from time to time.
-Popper and Lakatos are good but I'm stuck on Leibowitz
tiger wrote:Contrary to what has been said here several times, and that I even thought to be true, you cannot easily escape copyright infringement by taking a program and rewriting small pieces of it one by one until everything has been rewritten.
"Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains.
When the first segment of code is rewritten, the new code will be an infringing work if it is substantially similar to the original code, or may be an infringing derivative work if it is a reimplementation in a different programming language. That reimplemented first segment is combined with the remaining parts of the original program to form an intermediate version. Subsequent modifications produce another work. So when you have completed the piecewise reimplementation, you have a set of works, each of whose creation infringes the exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright of the original program.
As an analogy, consider the translation of a novel to a different language, something that would clearly be a derivative work. It makes little difference that none of the original words remain, or that the translation was done a little at a time. The resulting translation is still an infringing derivative work.
Even if you completely replace the program with new code, nonliteral elements also protected by the original program’s copyright are likely to remain and infringe – elements like the overall program structure or architecture and data structures that are not dictated by external or efficiency considerations. Although there is no case law on this point, it would seem that the only way to break the chain of infringing works is by some extraordinary act, such as a clean room implementation."
I suggest to anybody interested in copyright infringement amongst computer chess programs to read the page linked above and the related pages.
