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The Artistic License was the first open source license to protect the rights of software authors to attribution and integrity. In the U.S. Copyright Act, those protections apply, as a matter of right, for authors of works of visual art. The law provides that:
Software is not a work of visual art, however, so it is not subject to this provision of the law. But a license expresses the law of the contract , and in the case of the Artistic License, the law of this contract protects software authors' rights to attribution and integrity. It does what the copyright law doesn't do ”protect the rights of software artists . The ways in which the Artistic License does this are interesting and effective, albeit legally confusing. But before I deal with this, I need to comment on the structure of that license ”a preamble about preambles. |
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