OT: Copyright issues when using code from books

[Andrew Shepherd]

This isn't strictly about C++, but the particular example is well known
to this group, so I thought I'd go here.



I was in a situation a year ago when I needed a typelist. For various
reasons (not the least political) I was reticent about adding the
entire Loki library to the codebase.

Instead, I got chapter 3 of Andrei Alexandrescu's "Modern C++ Design"
and implemented my own. In the comments I cited the book and the
chapter.

A colleague has recently admonished me for doing this, and said that I
needed to include an appropriate copyright notice, as the source was
from somewhere else.

Is he correct? If you manually type a portion of code gotten from a
book, are there legal issues of copyright involved?



Also, does anyone know of a more appropriate group for a question like
this?

 

[Niels Dybdahl]

I was in a situation a year ago when I needed a typelist. For various

reasons (not the least political) I was reticent about adding the
entire Loki library to the codebase.

Instead, I got chapter 3 of Andrei Alexandrescu's "Modern C++ Design"
and implemented my own. In the comments I cited the book and the
chapter.

A colleague has recently admonished me for doing this, and said that I
needed to include an appropriate copyright notice, as the source was
from somewhere else.

Is he correct? If you manually type a portion of code gotten from a
book, are there legal issues of copyright involved?

Of course. The author has the copyright of the contents of the book, so you
can not copy it without his permission.
He might have given you permission somewhere in the book. Otherwise you will
have to ask him for his permission.
If you only use the code for testing or personal/private use, then I do not
think you have to ask.

Niels Dybdahl

 

[David Lee Conley]

This isn't strictly about C++, but the particular example is well known
to this group, so I thought I'd go here.



I was in a situation a year ago when I needed a typelist. For various
reasons (not the least political) I was reticent about adding the
entire Loki library to the codebase.

Instead, I got chapter 3 of Andrei Alexandrescu's "Modern C++ Design"
and implemented my own. In the comments I cited the book and the
chapter.

A colleague has recently admonished me for doing this, and said that I
needed to include an appropriate copyright notice, as the source was
from somewhere else.

Is he correct? If you manually type a portion of code gotten from a
book, are there legal issues of copyright involved?



Also, does anyone know of a more appropriate group for a question like
this?

I did a research paper about 18 years ago on copyright law. Although the
law has changed since then to accommodate the information age, the
principles are still basically the same. In general, you may not use any
portion of a copyrighted work unless it is for educational purposes. If I
remember correctly, you may make copies and (in this case) use the code in
the book, provided you are the original owner of that book and it for
personal use only. You may not use copyrighted material for commercial
purposes without the written permission of the author of the material unless
he/she explicitly provides such permission, as Niels mentioned in his
response.

HTH

Dave

 

[Pete Becker]

Is he correct? If you manually type a portion of code gotten from a
book, are there legal issues of copyright involved?

Copyright covers the expression of an idea. You can use the idea all you
like; you cannot copy and publish the author's words (or code), unless
there's no other reasonable way to express the idea. If you re-express
the idea (and that requires more than just changing the names of
identifiers) you're not violating the copyright.