(Re-)formatting and displaying of software licenses/privacy policy/impressum I'm currently trying to include and render all the software licenses of products which are used by my software, a privacy policy and an impressum (necessary by German law; stating contact information). Now I've got some questions regarding the indentation and whitespace formatting as well as the displaying in general. Often legal texts are already kind of preformatted. They are having a fixed width and word-wrapped paragraphs. If I would display them in my software for several display devices (mobile phones/tablets/desktop pcs), the text field would word-wrap them again and lead to strange formatting (underful lines and too many line breaks). Am I allowed to undo the word-wrapping of all the texts and unindent them, as well as performing a new word-wrap on them? Do I have to make sure that it is readable for everyone on every device, and do I have to make sure that accessibility interfaces are used (e.g. for blind persons, which aren't even the target group of my software)? Do I have to make sure, that if my application wouldn't even start correctly on a device, that the user is able to start the application in an impossible, absurd, magic or religious way to ensure that he can read the legal texts or is it enough to state it on the website then? Do I have to make sure that the rendering of the licenses/privacy policy/impressum is performant (e.g. text rendering and refresh after scrolling takes less than a second)? I already have to include two external libraries with my software to display the texts, otherwise it would not be possible to display texts at all. My location/nationality: Germany/German. My distribution targets: Germany, UK, USA, maybe even some more but mainly countries with English as main language. Kind regards, Daniel
I cannot speak for civil law systems (Germany) but in Common Law (UK, USA) systems the law looks at substance rather than form. So: Am I allowed to undo the word-wrapping of all the texts and unindent them, as well as performing a new word-wrap on them? Yes Do I have to make sure that it is readable for everyone on every device, and do I have to make sure that accessibility interfaces are used (e.g. for blind persons, which aren't even the target group of my software)? If they are licences (rather than contracts) they must simply be available; this does not mean universally available. Do I have to make sure, that if my application wouldn't even start correctly on a device, that the user is able to start the application in an impossible, absurd, magic or religious way to ensure that he can read the legal texts or is it enough to state it on the website then? It depends if you want the licences to be enforceable by you on the users or if you are simply complying with your disclosure obligations. See What if the user disagreed with the Terms of Service, but still registered on a website?. Do I have to make sure that the rendering of the licenses/privacy policy/impressum is performant (e.g. text rendering and refresh after scrolling takes less than a second)? I already have to include two external libraries with my software to display the texts, otherwise it would not be possible to display texts at all. No - make them wait if you want.
Generally, no, this will not violate copyright. Your end user might violate copyright, but that is their problem not yours. Your program is a tool, just like a word processor is. If I copy a Harry Potter book into a word processor that does not make the word processor maker liable. There is a concept of "contributory infringement", which I think is what you are concerned about. I don't know about Danish law in particular, but most countries would require evidence that you had reasonable knowledge that actual copyright violation was occuring, rather than just being aware that it might happen in theory. This is normally applied to file sharing services who have to have "notice and takedown" measures, file filters and the like. This isn't your concern as you never have any access to the files created by your users. You can also be found liable if you induce anyone to commit copyright violations. Don't draw your customers attention to the custom monster feature as a workaround for those copyrighted monsters, as that could be considered to be inducement. Also don't provide any "wizards" or similar tools which make it noticeably easier to duplicate the custom monsters (e.g. if you notice that the copyrighted custom dragon stats are all on a linear scale with dragon size, don't create a "dragon creation wizard" embodying that fact.) This assumes that your program runs entirely on the end user computer. Its different if you provide any kind of cloud storage for generated characters.
"Pastiche" is a literary, not a legal term, and as a professional coder, I would not use it to describe code that to some extent imitated other code. The legal question here is: is your code a derivative work of the code it is based on, and if it is, did you have permission to make that work. Copyright, in an Berne Convention country, which includes the EU, does not protect ideas and concepts, it protects expression. It protects the choices of words and symbols, and other forms of expression. If all you did was study example code, presented for educational purposes, and then write code that performs a similar function, using the same general techniques, then I don't think you have infringed copyright. That, after all, is why people post code to Stack Overflow and similar sites, to allow them to learn how to use specific coding techniques, including in commercial projects. I have used techniques posted to SO to do coding as part of my paid job. The usual test for copying under US law is "substantial similarity". This takes into account cases where there is essentially only one way to say or code something. I don't know the exact tests under the various laws of various EU countries, and they will not all be the same. But I suspect that on this point they are, well, substantially similar :). I can't advise on your specific situation. But if it is as described, I don't think you have a problem.
Similar to this question and this one, the Uniform Commercial Code requires that exclusion of warranty be conspicuous. While it does not specify the manner in which text should be made conspicuous, putting it in all caps certainly has that effect if the surrounding text is in sentence case. The meaning is that all products come with implied warranties of merchantability (it is good enough to be sold to you) and fitness for purpose (it will do what it's meant to, and what you've been told it will do). This text excludes this product from those warranties (that is, those warranties do not apply). It also disclaims liability for claims and damages, which means that if this software causes you harm or damage, you can't file a suit to recover any loss. Whether this is enforceable would be decided by a court.
Each directives page on eur-lex has a "national transposition" page. For example, directive 2009/65/EC, concerning UCITS, is available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex:32009L0065. There is a navigation box at the top left with several relevant pages: Text Document information Procedure National transposition Summary of legislation (Before the recent site redesign, these were shown as tabs across the top of the page, so for the lack of a better term, I will call these "tabs.") The Document information tab shows, among other metadata, relationships with other EU acts. One useful section on this page is the All consolidated versions section, which is a set of links to consolidated versions of the document, indicated by date. The answer to your question is the National transposition tab, which shows "National transposition measures communicated by the Member States." It is worth noting the disclaimer: The member states bear sole responsibility for all information on this site provided by them on the transposition of EU law into national law. This does not, however, prejudice the results of the verification by the Commission of the completeness and correctness of the transposition of EU law into national law as formally notified to it by the member states. The collection National transposition measures is updated weekly. The list of national acts is in the form of links, which lead to pages that seem designed to present the text of the national legislation, but in the examples I have checked say nothing more than "Text is not available." Perhaps there are some instances, or will be in the future, where these contain links to national legal information sites. As it is, there is enough information to enable one to search the national sites to find the relevant legislation.
Yes A software license is just a contract and parties to a contract are free to agree whatever terms they wish under the doctrine of freedom to contract. Government can restrict what terms can be used in a contract either in general (e.g. for being against public policy) or specifically (e.g. by requiring wages be paid in money). None of the terms you mention fall foul of any restrictions I know of.
The audio book would probably be an infringing derivative work because the client could redistribute it once the client received it. It sounds very much like a product that is regularly sold by merchants relying on copyrights. Conceivably, simply reading a book aloud to a client in some sort of streaming context that could't be shared with others or replayed would merely be fair use, much like hiring a baby sitter to read a book aloud to your children would be clearly fair use. If there were an automatic text to sound converter as opposed to an individualized performance, it might not be considered infringing. There are people with programs that do this who haven't been sued, but the boundaries haven't been explored very thoroughly. Honestly, there isn't a lot of guidance in this area from statutory language, and the questions would often not be guided by much case law involving similar facts. Your intuition living in the modern world is probably almost as good as a lawyer's in this situation.
Ok here is my go at answering my own question: (see comments above &amp; below for links) Depending on what you want to do, GPL can be a bit complicated, with multiple versions, version numbers, and added exceptions over the years. it can be a headache. However, for this purposes of app development incorporating GPL/LGPL libraries, it is fairly straightforward. Keep in mind to check version numbers on all relevant documents, although they are most likely v3.0. As far as I know linking to a GPL library binds you to also releasing your code under GPL. So that is a no-go for closed source, but that brings me to my 1st question. is it legal for me to remain closed source while incorporating external libs that are both BSD and LGPL? and I think the answer to that is yes provided that I dynamically link to said component (.so .dll .dylib .framework). Permission of this is granted under section 4d of LGPL v3.0. d) Do one of the following: 0) Convey the Minimal Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, and the Corresponding Application Code in a form suitable for, and under terms that permit, the user to recombine or relink the Application with a modified version of the Linked Version to produce a modified Combined Work, in the manner specified by section 6 of the GNU GPL for conveying Corresponding Source. 1) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (a) uses at run time a copy of the Library already present on the user's computer system, and (b) will operate properly with a modified version of the Library that is interface-compatible with the Linked Version. My 2nd question Would it change the ability for me to stay closed source if i were to use an altered version of one of these libraries? It is my interpretation that in this case the only source you would need to provide is that of the modified library, and that the application itself can remain closed source. I'm basing this on grounds that nothing has changed from the situation for my 1st question other than the fact that the modified component library is now a derivative work under standard GPL v3.0. finally my 3rd question what is the legal effect on static vs dynamic linking? This seams to be a bit iffy. Again see section 4d of the LGPL v3.0. By this wording dynamic linking is much preferable, and there are basically no requirements. If you choose to link statically though(in other words as part of the project build) things get complicated. To fully understand see LGPL definition of "Corresponding Application Code", and then see sections 4 5 and 6 of the GPL document. Full source is not required, but as far as i can tell you are required to provide all necessary materials for someone to build the project from scratch, so they can use a different version of the library if they so choose. This, in my opinion, would not be closed source. I hope that is clear enough? I did quite a bit of looking around the internet in coming up with this answer, and in the end even some reading of the license, though I'm not sure I've actually read them through in there entirety. Keep in mind that there are multiple version of each license, and you should check version numbers for each LGPL library you use. There is a lot of good information on on opensource.stackexchange, although much more than one can process in a single sitting, and with occasional disagreement on finer points. Below are some related links. gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.txt copyfree.org/content/standard/licenses/2bsd/license.txt opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1700/are-derivative-works-a-subset... opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2772/can-this-nvidia-licence-be-us... opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2488/do-i-need-to-host-qt-source-w... opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1431/are-there-examples-of-proprie... opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5162/are-the-terms-of-lgpl-3-0-alr...