Complications

• Fair use
  • Small snippets for criticism, research and education, parody
  • Note: snippets
  • Note: for criticism, research and education, parody
  • In practice, doesn't apply to software much
• Is linking 'aggregation'?
  • Does dynamic linking count as 'creating a derivative work'?
  • LGPL ("Lesser"/"Library" GPL) explicitly allows this
• To file claim, must register w/copyright office
  • When there are multiple authors, ownership can be legally complex
  • FSF insists authors assign copyright to them to avoid this hassle
• What's 'expression' and what's 'idea'?
  • If there's only one way to express the idea, it's not copyrightable
    • errno.h
  • Scenes a faire: standard items in all works of a type
    • WWII movies with beer halls, "Heil Hitler", etc.
    • What's 'standard' in programming is legally unsettled
    • "Look and Feel", etc.