What does &quot;human-perceivable form&quot; mean? I am trying to find the differences between Version A and Version B of an executable binary to determine whether Version C (a localisation) is based on Version A or Version B. The problem is the license. In the restrictions section, it contains this text: The Software contains copyrighted material, trade secrets and other proprietary material. You may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to a human-perceivable form. Looking around the internet, I have found several instances of similarly worded licenses, but nowhere have I found what this phrase means. Does printing the executable to the screen (using something like cat) count as producing a "human-perceivable form"? What about creating a hex-dump of the executable? Going a step further and turning the hex-dump into assembly is explicitly stated to be considered as such, but Real Programmers use hexadecimal anyway; I know of several humans who can perceive code in the form of a hex-dump. Going back to simple printing, in a character set without unprintable characters it wouldn't be very difficult to learn the mappings between two-digit hex numbers and characters; one could even use a font where each glyph consists of two hexadecimal numbers. Where is the line drawn? What would be legal, and what would not? Is it different if the form is never directly perceived by humans?
The issue is that "decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble" is probably too narrow, so they need a broad expression that means "and things like that", but "things like that" would be too vague. I don't know what other alternatives are out there, but this might not explicitly prohibit an instruction-trace on the executing code, and they may want to (although I am not sure what the exact scope of "reverse engineer" is). In saying "reduce the Software to a human-perceivable form", the choice of the word "reduce" is no doubt significant. A reasonable man would conclude that an effort to simplify the raw binary code into something more graspable (such as opcodes) is a reduction to perceivable form. However, a screen dump via cat or a hex print doesn't affect the informational content of the file, it just changes the mode of representation: it makes it perceivable, but does not reduce the software in any way (does not reduce the entropy of the bit pattern). If they had intended to say "render it in a human perceivable form", they could have, so we should focus on the impact of "reduce". I don't believe the courts have given a ruling on the legal meaning of "reduce".
What licence should I display in the footer of my website? None unless you want people to copy and reuse the content. The content (except for mere facts) will be protected by copyright regardless. When you expect people to want to copy and reuse it, it makes sense to tell them in advance under what conditions they can do it (instead of being bothered by their questions). This is what displaying a licence is for. If you were a visual designer then a licence would make sense as visuals are likely to be wanted to be copied and used. But a CV, list of projects and comments from customers are probably not likely to be wanted for reuse and distribution, though it is ultimately for you to decide. If you think someone will want to copy and further distribute your content, you'll need to figure out under what conditions you want to allow it, and then search for a licence that fits. If none found, just create your own.
It does not matter whether the document is authentic, because it is true, by law. Under copyright law, you must have permission of the copyright holder to copy any protected work (original creative work not created as a work of the US, as an example under US law). This is true whether or not the copyright holder tells you that copying requires permission. A matter for more concern is &quot;false permission&quot;, where a person without the right to grant permission utters something that the courts would usually interpret as being &quot;permission&quot;, for example releasing a Harry Potter book under CC-0. The legal requirement is that you have actual permission, not that a prohibition was not communicated to you. It is in your interest to know whether the actual person making available a work under some license actually has the right to grant a license. But there is no way to know for certain who holds copyright. You can, however, attempt to determine that a work has been registered with the US copyright office, looking here. Works are still protected when not registered, so failing to find a copyright registration does not guarantee that the work is &quot;open access&quot;. It would tell you who the registered copyright holder is. There is no &quot;innocent infringement&quot; defense, but under §504(c)(2), your liability for statutory damages can be reduced to as little as $200, if you can prove that there were no indications that the work is protected.
Unless you have a legally valid IP right related to the specification that statement is meaningless. When a software license is granted it is based on the copyright of the code. The copyright of the spec. just stops people from copying the spec - it does not protect the information in it. You can restrict copying of the spec. under copyright, you can make up a name for the spec (like USB or Bluetooth) and get a trademark and only allow the trademark use in limited cases(doesn’t stop implementation of the spec), or get a patent that would be necessarily infringed if something complying with the spec was created and used, sold, made, etc. or you can keep it secret and only show it to people who contractually agreed with your terms.
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).
The resulting figure could surely be covered by copyright, if it is original. A new set of folds to make a known figure might not be separately protectable under US law. In this news story A court in Japan is said to have held that: the folding instructions are indeed a copyrightable subject matter, because (i) the author’s selection of 10 out of 32 folding steps were subject to alternative modes of expression; (ii) the author’s folding instructions, including the organization of the diagrams, the texts, and the drawings, had elements of “style”; (iii) taken in its entirety, one admittedly found room for creative expression (Tokyo District Court Opinion: Case No. Heisei 23 (2011) (Wa) 18968 (Tokyo D.Ct., May 20, 2011). But it further held that the particular diagram displayed was not an infringement of the claimed source. In this tech dirt podcast a suit over an artwork derived from a folding pattern is reported. Tech dirt thinks it is an obvious case of fair use. The British Origami society says: The issue of how the laws of copyright affect origami diagrams and models is an important one. Groups such as the Origami Artists and Creators are working towards an internationally agreed set of guidelines. Dr. Robert Lang has presented his interpretation on his website. Until a common statement is agreed, we refer people to the terms in our constitution. (1) The Society and its Members shall respect all copyrights, registered trademarks and registered designs in all models, designs, diagrams, photographs, books and writings and shall observe the laws of copyright, registered trademarks, registered designs and patents and all other provisions relating to intellectual property which are applicable in all the separate countries throughout the World. (2) This article shall apply to all models, designs, diagrams, photographs, books and writings whether existing in writing or print on paper or any other hard copy or existing in electronic form, photocopy or microfiche in libraries, public or private archives or on the internet or on recorded discs or tapes of any kind or in any other kind of electronic record and whether made commercially or otherwise publicly or made privately. (3) Before reproducing any model, drawing, photograph or text contained in any publication, a member of the Society shall obtain the consent of the copyright owner before publication. (4) As a matter of courtesy, whether or not required to do so by law, the Society and its Members shall give proper acknowledgement to the original author of any model, design or diagram demonstrated or reproduced in any manner. Origami USA says that: OrigamiUSA is very concerned about protecting and respecting the rights of origami artists, authors, and diagrammers. While &quot;traditional&quot; origami models are in the public domain, the vast majority of published origami designs are of recent authorship and therefore cannot be published or used commercially without obtaining permission from their creators and/or diagrammers. It seems that few suits on origami copyright have been filed, and then appealed to where opinions are published and thus accessible to a non-professional's search.
It means the entire code compilation has been updated to include all legislative revisions to the code that occurred in the XXXX legislative session (and obviously earlier ones too). Of course, not every section of the code is amended every legislative session, but the compilation will still report that it is accurate through to the end of XXXX legislative session. This method of reporting currency isn't a good match for online compilations or compilations that receive updates multiple times per year, so you may see variants, like &quot;through 2012 portion of 2011-2012 Reg. Sess.&quot; (however the publisher itself reports its currency information). The Bluebook citation standard had traditionally required this currency information to be cited for all statutes, but in the latest version, that requirement has essentially been removed for federal statutes. What Justia is calling a &quot;Universal Citation&quot; is probably better called a &quot;media-neutral&quot; citation, following the format of the AALL Universal Citation Guide. However, it's a bit of a misnomer because no entity has a monopoly on citation style, although the Bluebook has a big influence. Justia even mentions, &quot;this universal citation is not necessarily the official citation, the latter which should be used when citing to primary and secondary legal materials in court filings, scholarly publications, etc.&quot;
Alice has been developing her own enhancements, and they're pretty similar to Bob's. Neither Alice nor Bob has copied the other's enhancements, so neither has violated the other's copyright in the enhancements. Whether that could be proved in court is another matter, of course, but since the original work is licensed under creative commons the question unlikely to arise in court. Would Alice be prevented from coming up with enhancements to her own game if other people could prove they thought of and released the idea first? No. Copyright does not protect ideas. It only protects a particular expression of those ideas from being copied. Theoretically, if two authors come up with identical 500-word descriptions of something and can establish that each did so independently, neither has a claim against the other. The practical problem there, of course, is that it would be impossible to prove such a thing. Could Alice outright claim Bob's "Adapted Material" because he developed it on her original work? Assuming that in publishing his adaptations Bob followed the terms of the creative commons license with respect to the original work, Alice's only claim would be that he copied her adaptations without following the terms of the license. If Bob can show that he did not do so, her claim would fail. In a comment, you wrote: Suppose Alice went ahead and intentionally, somehow provably ripped off Bob's "Adapted Material" because she liked the content so much, does Bob reserve any rights on his adaptation, or is Alice able to commercialize the work that Bob did in extending her original work? If we assume that Bob complied with the license of the original material, we know that he licensed his adaptations under "the identical terms," so Alice would be able to use Bob's adaptations under those terms for non-commercial purposes. Since the assumption here is that Alice provably copied something of Bob's, I think it is fairly clear that she would be liable for damages if she exploited that material commercially without paying royalties.