The Chain of Title for Copyright

Collective and derivative works are entitled to copyrights as original works of authorship, but that doesn't mean that those copyrights replace the earlier copyrights on the component parts . Here's how the Copyright Act describes it:

The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the existing material. (17 U.S.C. § 103[b].)

Mature open source projects often consist of software passed through many such stages of aggregation and modification, their original works of authorship proudly displaying a long chain of title including the names of many individuals and organizations that preceded them.

The term chain of title is most frequently used to describe ownership of real property in the United States. Starting with the original land grant from the King of England (and usually ignoring completely the previous rights of the Native Americans who long preceded the king), it is possible to trace ownership of each parcel of land through the generations. As land is divided, easements are granted, and children inherit from their parents, title to the land passes from one owner to another. The current owner of the land holds that land subject to the restrictions and covenants agreed to by his forebears.

The chain of title becomes important in open source licensing when someone wants to create a collective or derivative work of a previous work that itself consists of contributions by many people. The new authors are subject to the licenses of previous authors who preceded them, and each of those contributions may have different license restrictions on its use.

That ever lengthening chain of title would appear to be an increasing burden on future generations of software developers, but the problem is not nearly so complex. Depending upon the open source licenses being used, it may only be necessary for new authors to ensure that they have licenses from their immediate predecessors and not all the way back to the first programmer writing the first version of the original contribution that started the chain.