Have you ever used code generation as part of software you have built?
Is there any reason why generated code could not be copyrighted as part of a larger system?
For example, suppose I define a data model for a public-facing API and then generate SDKs in various popular programming languages to interact with the public-facing API.
If I were a major corporation that owned such a public-facing API, then I would expect that the generated SDKs would carry the major corporation's copyright.
edit: Another example of generated code would be the code generated by lexer analyzer generator and parser generator tools such as lex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)), flex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flex_(lexical_analyser_generat...), YACC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Yacc), and bison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Bison).
If you create commercial software that includes YACC-generated code, wouldn't the generated code be copyrightable?
The involvement of actual human creativity is required for a work to be copyrightable.
So human creativity is involved, but is not the direct creator of the SDKs. Does that count? I am not really sure.
I bring up the generated SDK example because I have used just such a system when I worked at a major corporation: I created a data model in Web Services Description Language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Services_Description_Langu...) and used a company-owned tool to generate SDKs in various programming languages. All of the generated SDKs had the company's copyright notice in the generated code.
I think this is the key statement that will make a difference. If you want to copyright a larger system, generated code is not a problem. If you want to copyright an individual, generated piece of code, I doubt you'll get copyright for that. But IANAL either.
(Appeals courts can still settle case law, even if SCOTUS doesn't hear the case. There are several precedents that are set by appeals courts and not SCOTUS itself.)
A fixed, CCTV feed of a beach with a daily sunset is not copyrightable, nor is a non-human using a photo camera.
What's the difference if they leave the camera there for longer? They still chose the placement and the angle and the lens. In either case, the camera's electronics are deciding the minutiae of the image acquisition.
While I'm at it, in a similar vein though entirely unrelated, i sometimes think of ways to create jurisprudence in your favor: You try to emulate a situation to your disliking - e.g. aggresive data hoarding - and file suit to yourself, try to argue the arguments that your target would probably file, but just crappy enough that you actually lose. Do this often and stealthy enough and voila, you might have generated enough jurisprudence to actually file your final claim based on your previous "lost" lawsuits. I do think that this actually does happen at times, though.
The patent for Monopoly is https://patents.google.com/patent/US2026082A/en which expired in '52
There is also issues of trademark on the '-opoly' games... which was settled in '83 with https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...
> Finally, in 1983, the Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that the word “Monopoly” had become generic, because purchasers associated the name with the product rather than with the source.7 Specifically, evidence showed that purchasers of Monopoly were motivated by their knowledge of the game, and not by its association with Parker Brothers. Directly as a result of this case, Congress amended § 14(c) of the Lanham Act, which addresses cancellation of a registered mark, later that year. Congress added language clarifying that a mark becomes generic only if its “primary significance . . . to the relevant public” is as the generic description of the particular goods or services, and that purchaser motivation is not used as the test.
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There are clones of Monopoly because the patent expired long ago and the trademark was lost in 83. ... Which is also why McDonalds did its Monopoly game in '87.
And IANAL, but I think that strategy could fall under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation.
What would be the difference between a "generated text or melody" you present to copyright, to one you've written yourself?
What would be the mark of "automatic generation" that would be used to identify them as such and disqualify them?
None, but you wouldn't get copyright, much like you can present the works of others as your own but won't actually get the copyright if you're not the creator.
Second, even if you have used a generator tool, regardless of if you wrote it or just run it, you're the creator of the works it produced, and you can trivially get copyright for it, unless somebody else copyrighted the same work.
Half of Brian Eno's output is generated works, where he sets some rules on a music synthesis system, and lets it create a work. Never had any issue copyrighting them...
