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Wed Apr 11 15:18:38 EDT 2001 · http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-April/098877.html

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:
|> On the other hand, if I take a public domain work, change one line, or
|> one word, or one character, then slap a copyright notice on it, I have a
|> legitimate copyright on the derived work.  Someone is free to do what
|> they want with the original (if they find it); but they do not have the
|> right to use my derived work unless they are licensed to do so.

Bob Kline <bkline at rksystems.com> wrote:
|This is not correct.  If your contribution is sufficiently insubstantial
|("de minimis" in the words of the case law) you will not have a
|legitimate copyright on the derived work.  Your examples fit this
|category of unacceptable claim.

I am interested in whether Kline's assertion is correct.  As far as I
can tell, the doctorine of 'De minimis non curat lex' is not really
relevent to the issue of copyrighted works that are derived from public
domain works.  Instead, de minimis concerns the issue of fair use of
small portions of a copyrighted work escaping copyright violation
claims.

I certainly agree that Kline's claim seems "right" in a sense of
prorpriety and basic fairness.  But I'm less sure about the legal
status.  It seems clear that *some* degree of derivation from public
domain works allows a new claim of copyright on the new work.  But if
not every degree of derivation, by what standard does one decide whether
a derivation is sufficient to make a new copyright claim on the derived
work?  Such a standard might be somewhat similar to the standards for
fair use of copyrighted works, but the issue really comes from a
different direction.

Yours, Lulu...

Btw. In creating my works that I place in the public domain (including,
for example, all my posts and emails that contain such a notice in their
header), I really do *want* anyone to have the right to change a
character then copyright the derived work.  Well...  I don't want it in
the sense that I do not believe copyright should exist at all.  But I do
want it in the sense that I want to place literally *no* restriction on
the use to which someone can put my works.

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Closing Off An Open-Source Product