Skip to main content
Open Source

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

2
  • 4
    Closely related: Theseus' Paradox applied to code copyright -- it is quite difficult to know what aspects of a program are copyrightable. For example, if you do a complete rewrite of the Harry Potter book series, even while not referring to the original text and trying to avoid verbatim copying, it's hard to imagine your new work is not infringing. However, the order and structure of mechanical steps performed by a computer program might (or not) be protected differently. Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 13:38
  • 2
    To address your concern specifically, it depends on the substantiality of what remains, structurally, of your contribution after the literal code is removed and the degree to which that structure constitutes protectable expression under copyright. (But this guideline isn't much of an answer by itself.) Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 13:45