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From: ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Copyrights & Translated programs
Message-ID: <5151@alice.uUCp>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 10:13:52 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.5151
Posted: Fri Mar 21 10:13:52 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 31-Mar-86 04:06:28 EST
References: <1914@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 14

>	According to the recent posting, a copyright grants the author
> exclusive rights over the reproduction of derivative works (i.e.,
> screen plays from novels).  Does this cover translating a program
>from one programming language to another?
>
>	At the risk of openning a can of worms, I will also ask whether
> it matters if the translation is done by a person or a program.  The
> program could be a compiler or it could be a converter from Pascal to C.

Since the copyright law covers translating a literary work from,
say, French to English, I'm sure it similarly covers translating
a copyrighted program from Pascal to C.  I can't imagine it would
make any difference whether the translation is done by a human or
a machine.