Does the originality requirement within U.S. copyright law mean that some Stack Overflow code snippets are not copyrightable? I understand that code on Stack Overflow is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, and that fair use doctrine may not apply to code snippets. I also recognize that it is ideal to rewrite code posted on Stack Overflow in our own words, both for legal reasons and for the learning experience it presents. However, what about code that would be hard or impossible to rewrite in our own words because there is only one accepted way to write it? Would it possibly be ineligible for copyright? For instance, let's say that I go to Stack Overflow because a Python math function like math.modf is not working. I then see a Stack Overflow post explaining that to make math functions work, you need to enter this line: import math If I copy and paste the import math code into my own program, then release it under a non-Creative Commons license, does that mean that I am violating copyright? I'm doubtful that this would be the case due to the originality requirement within U.S. copyright law: The Originality Requirement Originality is “the bedrock principle of copyright” and “the very premise of copyright law.” Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., 499 U.S. 340, 347 (1991) (citation omitted). “To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author,” which means that the work must be “independently created by the author” and it must possess “at least some minimal degree of creativity.” Id. at 345 (citations omitted) Source The above chapter goes on to say that: “[T]here is nothing remotely creative” about a work that merely reflects “an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course.” A line like import math does not strike me as very creative; rather, it is simply a required bit of code for getting Python's math library to run within a program. I doubt it would be necessary to rewrite the code as import math as m when import math works just fine. In other words, I am wondering if the originality requirement implies that some code snippets on Stack Overflow may not be original enough to be copyrightable in the U.S. Please let me know your thoughts. Additional notes: I do not believe that this FAQ post, while informative, addresses this specific question, since that post does not make any reference to the originality requirement for U.S. copyright. The answer to that post states, in part, that &quot;Anything that you post to Stack Overflow will be under the terms of the Creative Commons license.&quot; However, I believe there are cases (such as the one in my example above) where a code snippet may not qualify for a Creative Commons copyright because it fails to meet the originality requirement. In fact, such cases may be substantial, especially for beginner-level questions that address general programming conventions. tpg2114 pointed out in the Meta forum (where this question had originally been posted) that a detailed explanation + import math or similarly non-original code block + detailed explanation as a whole would qualify for a CC license. I think my main concern is about situations where the code provided is the widely accepted best practice for a particular language, rather than someone's original creative work. In other words, if the line of code reflects how thousands of programmers around the world would accomplish a task because it's the best way to do so, I'm just doubtful whether a copyright license would apply. tpg2114 also helped me realize that a relevant question here is: if something can't be copyrighted, does it qualify for a Creative Commons license? The following quotes from the Creative Commons website indicate that material that can't be copyrighted also can't have a Creative Commons license applied to it: &quot;CC licenses do not contractually impose restrictions on uses of a work where there is no underlying copyright.&quot; &quot;CC licenses are operative only when applied to material in which a copyright exists, and even then only when a particular use would otherwise not be permitted by copyright.&quot; &quot;You should also not apply Creative Commons licenses to works that are no longer protected by copyright or are otherwise in the public domain.&quot; Source for all 3 quotes This raises a new question: even if a post + code snippet as a whole are eligible for Creative Commons (due to the originality expressed in the text, for instance), if the code snippet by itself does not qualify for copyright because it's similar to import math, would I be able to use that without releasing my own program under Creative Commons? I believe the following quote may help answer this question: &quot;To constitute an adaptation [which would need to be licensed under CC-BY-SA as well if the source was CC-BY-SA], the resulting work itself must be considered based on or derived from the original. This means that if you use a few lines from a poem to illustrate a poetry technique in an article you’re writing, your article is not an adaptation because your article is not derived from or based on the poem from which you took a few lines.&quot; Source So in other words, if I take an excerpt like import math from a CC-BY-SA post on Stack Overflow and incorporate it into a larger project, my project may not be an adaptation of the Stack Overflow post, and therefore I may not need to release my project under CC-BY-SA as well. I say &quot;may not&quot; because (1) I'm not a lawyer, and (2) the code snippet isn't just an illustration or an example, but rather plays an important role in the functioning of my actual program. I also found this helpful article from an attorney that addresses whether simple code snippets can be copyrighted: However, this article states that Stack Overflow posts are covered by CC-BY, when in fact they're covered under CC-BY-SA.
You are in general correct, KBurchfiel. A code snippet such as import math; or For i := 1 to 10 print i; has no originality, and is not protected by copyright. A post eplaining the meaning an usage of such a snippet might well be original enough to be protected by US copyright, indeed it probably would. But the code on its own would not be. Anyone could read such a post, and if s/he understood it, use the code snippet and not be in violation of copyright, not compelled to place the entire program in which such a snippet was used under a CC-=BY-SA license. The creative commons people would prefer that a CC license not be applied to a publication that is not protected by copyright, and if it is so applied it is legally meaningless. But they have no legal way to enforce such a preference. A stack exchange post that consisted of nothing but such an uncopyrightable code snippet, with no explanation r discussion, might well be downvoted or even deleted. But that is a matter of site policy on what is a useful answer, not a matter of copyright. Using an excerpt from a copyrighted work so small that the excerpt alone would be uncopyrightable, would probably be fair use under US law, and might well be fair dealing in UK law. Something that is fair use does not compel the reuser to abide by the terms of a CC license, because those terms apply only when the content could not be reused without the CC license's permission. However, a code snippet does not need to be very much more original than the above examples before it becomes copyrightable. Whether it can be used via fair use rather than via the CC-BY-SA license is a very fact-based decision (the usual four-factor analysis is spelled out in 17 USC 107).. But if the snippet can be rewritten to express the same concepts but in a different expression, then there is no copyright issue, and again the CC license will not apply. If the snippet is complex and original enough to be copyrightable (a fairly low bar) and it is re-used unchanged, under conditions where fair use does not apply, then the CC-BY-SA license's terms must be complied with for the use to be legal. That is several &quot;IFs&quot; however. The exact details of a specific case will matter in such cases, there is not one rule for all snippets, all posts, or all programs.
If one is writing about a work of fiction, one may describe the work, and use terms from the work in doing so. One might write, for example: In Spaceman Sam the characters use &quot;blasters&quot; as weapons, while in Jack of the Galaxy &quot;contragravity&quot; is used to propel &quot;aircars&quot; These are facts, and copyright may never be used to protect facts. Moreover, such uses as reviews and criticism are particularly likely to constitute fair use under US law, or another exception to copyright under the law of some other country, even if some otherwise protected content is quoted. If something appeared in that sci-fi universe prior to me re-iterating it; does that mean it's fair game for me to use? If the &quot;something&quot; that appeared earlier is an &quot;idea&quot; or a name, it is indeed fair game. This is true whether it is obscure or well-known. In any case describing the facts of the fiction, even in detail, is generally not an infringement. If &quot;re-iterating&quot; something from an existing work in a new fiction involves an extensive quotation, or a detailed, point-by-point reuse of a fictional element, that might constitute infringement, unless fair use or another exception to copyright applies. Does intellectual law protect very specific plot concepts? No, it doesn't. A plot concept is an idea. In the US, 17 USV 103(b) reads: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. Laws in other countries are similar on this point. This is sometimes known as the idea/expression distinction. This means that while the expression used to embody a concept is often protected by copyright, the concept itself never is. Are you allowed to borrow names of different generic sci-fi inventions that aren't super-important to the story. Yes. In fact even the names of fictional technological devices that are very important to a story may be, and often are, reused in different works by different authors. For example Ursula LeGuin used &quot;ansible&quot; as the name of a faster-then-light communicator, in fact an instantaneous communication device, in her &quot;Hanish&quot; series, particularly in The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, and The Word for World is Forest. (She wrote that the term was derived from the word &quot;answerable&quot;.) The term and concept were reused by Vernor Vinge in &quot;The Blabber&quot; and A Fire Upon the Deep, and by Elizabeth Moon in the &quot;Sassanek&quot; series and more centrally in the &quot;Vatta's war&quot; series starting with Trading in Danger. Moreover, the names of fictional characters are not protected. An author might introduce characters with names borrowed from Tolkien, Heinlein, or other well-known (or obscure) fictional works. US Copyright Office circular #33 &quot;Works not protected by Copyright&quot; says that &quot;names, titles, and short phrases&quot; may not be protected by copyright, and will not be separably registered. However, if a character has not only the name of a previous character, but a detailed, point-by-point similarity in distinctive elements to a character in a protected work, that may be enough to make the newer work a derivative work, and thus be infringing if permission is not obtained from the copyright holder on the source work. The same is true of the detailed reproduction of a distinctive setting from a source work. But a mere name and broad, general description is not enough tom make a later work derivative. The more details are reproduced, and the more distinctive and specific those details are, the more likely the newer work is to be found distinctive.
"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.
Ideas (methods of playing, game mechanics, strategy, goals) cannot be protected by copyright. But any part of a creative work can. So, no copying of drawings, patterns, images, sounds, or the element. I suppose copying the software code is not an issue here, but it can, obviously, also not be copied. And nothing in your game can look like someone's else trademark.
First, there's a step missing: parody does not &quot;therefore&quot; allow you to copy protected works. You have to determine whether this is &quot;fair use&quot;, where you get in the neighborhood of parody in identifying &quot;purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ..., scholarship, or research&quot;. Therefore you have to go through the balancing act that is fair use analysis. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., SCOTUS considered parody as a form of criticism or comment, noting that &quot;This Court has only once before even considered whether parody may be fair use, and that time issued no opinion because of the Court's equal division&quot;. For that case, the court continues Suffice it to say now that parody has an obvious claim to transformative value, as Acuff Rose itself does not deny. Like less ostensibly humorous forms of criticism, it can provide social benefit, by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one. We thus line up with the courts that have held that parody, like other comment or criticism, may claim fair use under § 107. The important step in this ruling is tha For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. In other words, you can't catch a free ride on &quot;parody&quot; to reach a fair use judgment. Even if it were parody, &quot;parody may or may not be fair use&quot;, as the court said. That does not preclude establishing that the work in some other way comments or criticizes. Get a lawyer before you go doing this, in case you end up involuntarily making new law.
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.
What you're talking about is called black-box reverse engineering. It can be done, and as long as you are meticulous in your record keeping the fact that it has been done should be an appropriate defence against copyright infringement. But that doesn't help against patent claims - while in copyright cases the fact that code has or has not been directly copied is critical, in patent cases it its irrelevant: if you use a patented method, it's a violation. You therefore will need to be careful about any patents that may have been issued to the original author, as well as avoiding copying.
Whoever "derived" the illegal derivative work most likely has copyright in his derivations, unless they are not worth copyright protections. Say I take the Harry Potter books and add a few chapters and try to sell it - that's copyright infringement of course, but I have the copyright on these additional chapters. However, I don't have the right to allow you to copy the derived work. And even if you have the right to copy the original work, you don't have the right to copy the derived work because it is a different work. I could extract my changes, and allow you to take them and do with them what you like. You could then create an illegally derived work yourself. I couldn't sue you, but the original copyright holder could. To the comments: One, a work and a derivative of the work are not the same, so even if you have the right to make a copy of a work, that doesn’t give you any right whatsoever to copy a derivative work - they are not the same work. Two, the copyright holder has the exclusive right to control copying and the creation of derivative works. If the copyright holder doesn’t want derivatives to exist, then creating them, copying them etc. is always copyright infringement.