Re: [Jonas Jacobson via RT] [gnu.org #305306] icons in proprietary software that resemble free icons?

[John Darrington]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 07:47:37PM -0700, Ben Pfaff wrote:
     John Darrington <address@hidden> writes:
     
     > This discussion might be more suitable on one of the gtk lists.  For
     > instance, the print button example is not an icon that I created, but
     > a stock button from the gtk library.  The icons that I created were 
     > not "copied" nor "derived"; by which I mean that, I never used the
     > pixels from any third party's icons nor did I at any stage copy the
     > files containing copyrighted icons to assist me in creating my own.
     > However I did look at the  icons of third parties and no doubt that
     > influenced my work.
     
     Well, then, there's no problem.  Only if your icons are
     derivative works of the SPSS icons would there be a problem.
     Looking similar doesn't mean they're derivative works, based on
     what I know now.
     
     I hope you're not feeling threatened or offended.  I certainly
     value your work, including your icons, and wouldn't want to have
     to replace or modify them.  I wanted to find out where the line
     was drawn for icons and similar works.  Now I know.
     
     I don't think there's a need to change our icons.

I agree.  Even if anybody could persuade a court that they were a
copyright violation, I can't imagine that they could possibly claim
this had caused them serious loss.  The worst that could happen is
that we'd have to replace them.

J'

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