[mike_herrera]

Can anyone explain why written code couldn't be considered "a compilation (an original manner of selecting or arranging preexisting works)?" I would think common sense would define most software as an arrangement of preexisting works.

e.g. If I'm contracted to develop a web app it's an original arrangement of an existing programming language.

[gohrt]

The language is tricky, but writing (a book, a program) (or drawing a picture) isn't considered "arranging" words (or paint drops). The entirety of existence is just a series of rearranging molecules, atoms, and quarks!

The attempted distinction is intuitive to me, but I for one can't think of the words for it.

[mike_herrera]

Let's try a concrete example:

Jane was hired as a contractor to deliver a business process application in C#. The contract to hire Jane was a work-for-hire contract without the explicit copyright transferring language... /end of example.

I would presume that Jane's final work product is an arrangement of previous work by Anders Hejlsberg (who lead the original C# development team) and other employees of Microsoft. Is this not a sound line of reasoning?

[Locke1689]

Nah. If I build a bridge using Caterpillar equipment I haven't re-arranged Caterpillar equipment into a bridge, I've just used tools.

Similarly, just because you write code in C# and then send it to code I wrote, which translates it to CIL, that doesn't mean that any of your code is actually an arrangement of my code. Your code just conformed to the required input of my tool (the C# compiler).

[mike_herrera]

Aaaand it's a Roslyn member who replies-- just my luck. :) I'll cede this one.

[pdpi]

If anything, I'd say unless the contractor is delivering a complete end-to-end piece of work, it'll almost certainly count as "a contribution to a collective work". Some types of work you might outsource (say, hiring a technical writer to write your documentation for you) might also count as "supplementary material".

[rmc]

Compilations are things like phone books, or a street directory.

If we took your logic, then all books are merely compilations of the alphabet, or dictionary. Judges would look at that and think "wait no, that breaks everything"

[mike_herrera]

> Compilations are things like phone books, or a street directory.

What about books of driving directions? Before ubiquitous access to navigation applications, I would have AAA assemble a book of directions for long trips. Each page represented instructions on which decisions I were to make AND when to make them.

I would argue that code represents an equivalent level of abstraction to the book of directions. The language's grammar being equivalent to the available choices on the road system.

> Judges would look at that and think "wait no, that breaks everything"

Is that not how new precedent is set?

[rmc]

> > Judges would look at that and think "wait no, that breaks everything"

> Is that not how new precedent is set?

That's kinda my point. I doubt judges want to set a precent that all books are now "compilations".