Copyright law vs software transformation As wikipedia says, A major limitation on copyright on ideas is that copyright protects only the original expression of ideas Suppose there are two companies: A and B, that produce software. Now, suppose that A published some commercial program, but obfuscated it, so that its functionality is unchanged, but the machine code produced looks completely different than in unobfuscated one. Subsequently, company B bought this program, deobfuscated its code and started selling it. As I understand, the original way of expressing ideas by company A was by publishing obfuscated code (the original version was not published at all). Since after deobfuscation by company B, code looks completely different, does it qualify as another way of expressing the same ideas and is legal, or has company B broken the copyright law? The above question concerns the case when B is selling the original program code that was extracted from published obfuscated version. But imagine that B transformed the code published by A to a completely different form different from both original and obfuscated one, but preserving functionality and sells it. Has company B broken the copyright law in this case?
Company B has created a derived work from company A's copyright-protected work, so yes, B has infringed on A's copyright. It might be difficult for A to prove it, however, so B might get away with it, but it's still infringement. On the other hand, if B creates software that behaves like A's through reverse engineering, that is, by examining the program's function without examining its code, then they will not have infringed the copyright in the code.
To answer the question in your title: Yes, software licenses are copyrighted. They are written works that involve (significant, expert) creative effort to create. The best solution would be for Grammarly to hire a lawyer and say "we want a new EULA. We think this one covers a number of points our current one doesn't". Most legal documents will be copyright for the same reason (there may be a few that are so stereotypical that there is essentially no creative effort in putting them together).
Being or not being open source makes fairly little difference in trademark law. If a commercial firm (Yoyodyne, say) had used the name &quot;Portable Network Graphics&quot; and the abbreviation &quot;PNG&quot; in trade, and taken such further steps as would be needed to protect it in the relevant countries, that firm would have a protectable trademark. Note that in some countries, a trademark must be registered to have any protection at all (much of the EU follows this rule). In others, use in commerce can offer some protection even without registration (the US follows this rule). Had this happened (in an alternate reality) Yoyodyne could have sent a cease and desist letter when open source developers started using the mark. If the devs did not cease, Yoyodyne might have obtained an injunction, or damages for trademark infringement, or both. They could also have issued a takedown notie to the site hosting the project. But had Yoyodyne failed to defend the mark effectively and allowed it to become generic, Yoyodyne might have lost all rights to it. Also, had Yoyodyne ceased to use it in trade for a significant period, they might have lost rights. This is a place where the different laws in different countries might lead to different results. Note that &quot;Portable Network Graphics&quot; is rather descriptive, and not particularly distinctive. Descriptive marks, like &quot;Tasty Pizza&quot; generally get weaker protection, while more distinctive marks, such as &quot;LuAnn's Tastee Pizza&quot; are more strongly protected, in general. Again this depends on the country, and the specific facts. In general the first to use, or to register a mark, gets the rights. When one entity is the first to use, but a different one is first to register, things can get confusing, and results will be different in different countries. Note that a Cease and Desist letter is not a legal requirement. It is a threat of possible future legal action, and often an offer to avoid such action if the recipient does as the sender requests. The recipient can comply with the letter, wait for court action, or try to make some sort of compromise deal. Open source projects, as other answers suggest, often choose to comply.
I can see two points you might be confused about in your question. 1. Works can be in the public domain without having a CC license The Wikipedia statement and the government statement are not inconsistent with each other; just because something isn't available under a Creative Commons license doesn't necessarily mean that it is restricted by copyright. In fact, CC licenses are moot for material in the public domain: When a work is in the public domain, it is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is the purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way. ... Creative Commons licenses do not affect the status of a work that is in the public domain under applicable law, because our licenses only apply to works that are protected by copyright. So if a work is in the public domain, you can use it for whatever purpose you wish (though see below), without restriction or attribution. This is less restrictive than the various Creative Commons licenses, which require various levels of attribution, non-modification, etc. depending on the license chosen by the creator. 2. Trademark protections are separate from copyright protections Your quote from the government website implies that these logos might be trademarked, even if they're not under copyright; this is entirely possible. Roughly speaking, trademark protections keep other people from trading on your good name &amp; reputation; copyright protections keep other people from directly profiting from your creative endeavors. If another party creates a product that uses a trademark in a way that would create confusion among consumers, the trademark holder can sue for that. Depending on how you use the logos, you might run afoul of these protections. See this Q&amp;A for futher details under US law. (Australian law may differ a bit but I would expect that the general principles are the same.)
Can he use another commercial product that is copyrighted, e.g. a map of a location (the map is a political map and has nothing to do with trees), for his tree research purposes, if such a map won't be part of the book he works on? Yes. Copyright protects particular expressions of ideas and knowledge, not the ideas and knowledge themselves. Using a map for research purposes when the map or a modified version of it does not appear in the final work does not make the final work a &quot;derivative work&quot; covered by copyright.
This is known as "film novelization"(For example, the novelizations of the Star Wars movies are film novelizations, created under license), and is copyright infringement unless made under a license from the copyright holder. Specifically, you would be making a derivative work of the original, by changing the medium. One of the rights provided by copyright is the right to control the transference from one medium into another. This, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, is unlikely to be found as fair use. There are four test factors for determining fair use(source), decided on a case by case basis: Transformative Character of the Derivative Work: Unlikely to be found in your favor, as nothing is transformed ("I don't change anything, the name are the same, everything is the same, it's just a conversion to textual form"). Nature of the Original Work: A narrative entertainment film, thus unlikely to be found in your favor. Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: You've taken all of it; not in your favor. Effect on the Potential Market: You are essentially providing a free version of what copyright holders can often charge for; negative effect on their potential market. Not in your favor.
A fundamental principle of copyright law is that protection is only afforded to the concrete expression, and not the abstract idea. Therefore, if you write a sort program, what is protected is &quot;that specific program&quot;, and not the general idea of a sort program. There are many kinds of sort algorithms: if you write a bubble sort program, you don't &quot;own&quot; all bubble sort programs, you only own the one that you wrote. If you sell your right to a particular bubble sort program, you don't thereby prevent yourself from writing another bubble sort program. But, technically, you do prevent yourself from copying that program, changing some variable names or maybe manually recoding a couple of lines, and re-licensing the code (assuming that you fully transferred copyright, or gave the customer exclusive rights to the code). The basic question that the courts will ask is &quot;did you copy that program&quot;, which they answer by looking at the similarity between the two programs. All bubble sorts have a necessary similarity. To prove infringement, the plaintiff would (ultimately) have to prove that the similarity had to have come from copying rather than independent coincidental re-creation. Functional considerations and general programmer practice would tend to weigh against an allegation of infringement in certain cases, where &quot;counter&quot; is a common name for a counter variable, and bubble sort is a well known algorithm with limited practical differences in lines of code. The hard part is establishing that it would be natural for such similarities to exist even when independently coded by a single person. It may be common practice to take a program that you've sold and tweak it in some fashion, but that is copyright infringement, whereas &quot;applying the lessons that you learned in writing X to a new program&quot; is not infringement, it is using the same ideas, and the ideas are not what is protected.
Under U.S. law (17 U.S. Code § 101 ) A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work.” But probably, focusing on this definition doesn't get to the heart of the question you seem to be asking. A more important matter becomes what protections does a copyright exclude? This is covered in § 102 (b), which says: 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. The similarities you describe seem to be more ideas and concepts rather than Heinlein's expression of those ideas. I have looked no closer than the description used in the question, but the movie seems unlikely to have violated a protected right. Others might disagree.