HACKER Q&A
📣 oscgam1

Is "no source code was copied" still a sufficient copyright defense?


We are all familiar with the Corgi event: https://x.com/mfts0/status/2070080422482977095

With the barrier to create new apps having dropped significantly thanks to LLMs, I am seeing more cases about copyright and unfair competition.

I've seen and participated in some of these cases. Usually expert witnesses are required.

Curious to hear the community stance on this one.

"Now software developers are feeling what authors and artist felt". https://x.com/PriyRanjan96/status/2070204156703568377

There are several claims of: Copying UI is Ok, your product is not undifferentiated enough.

Here is a legal assessment of the situation: https://x.com/jessebradner/status/2070492879718350986

  👤 robotmaxtron Accepted Answer ✓
copyright is only as good as the enforcement. enforcement is exhausting and expensive.
👤 wahern
If you're worried about infringement, register your work with the US copyright office. You can only get monetary and statutory damages if the work was registered before infringement, otherwise you can only get an injunction. But you can't even file a claim in court to request an injunction without first registering the work. Basically, while copyright nominally attaches at creation, without a certificate you can't press any rights in court.

You don't need to register each release, so long as a material portion of the registered work exists in subsequent derivative works.

Without a registration threats of a copyright dispute are mostly noise to someone savvy enough to know how the game is played. If they think you'll persist they can just replace the infringing work or cease distribution, which is a hassle but not a significant deterrence for bad faith actors.

👤 eqvinox
"still"? It never was. If you copy a (copyrighted) UI in bulk, that's a copyright violation just like copying code in bulk. The legal metric is generally "sufficient height of creation", the actual interpretation depends on where you are.
👤 josefritzishere
No definitely not. I've never seen a patent include code. They're more likely to describe IP in a work flow diagram.