🚀 go-pugleaf

Arthur Kreitman <artk@Congruent.COM> wrote:
>  I know that's what happens.   I just doubt that any court will enforce
>a contract that makes your 100,000 lines of code a derivative work of 
>100 lines or so and require you disclose your source code.

It's not the contract that makes it a derivative work.  It is the copying
that does so.  The size of the code it is copied into is completely,
totally, and overwhelmingly, irrelevant.

You are probably correct that courts would not force disclosure of the
infringer's source code.  Rather, the infringer would be liable to the
owner of the 100 lines for the usual copyright damages.  The infringer
would have to pay for the lost sales of the copyright owner and also
disgorge the infringer's profits, and maybe pay attorney fees.

Alternatively, the copyright owner could elect "statutory damages",
in which case the court would pick a number in the range $500-$100000
as the amount of damages (and possibly also award attorney fees).

In both cases, I believe, the copyright owner could also get an
injunction to prevent future distribution of the infringing product.

--Tim Smith