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docs/source/brandolinis.rst
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@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ As we are surely only at the on-ramp of this trajectory, the chapter will contin
What The Reticulum License Is
-----------------------------
*To understand the legal reality relating to this section, see* :ref:`Void Grants<brandolinis-void-grants>`.
The :ref:`Reticulum License<license>` is the license under which RNS, the Reticulum reference implementation, has been published since **April 15, 2025**\ , in versioning effective from **0.9.4** and every release since. In practical terms, it covers all of "modern Reticulum": The current wire format, the cryptographic machinery as it exists today (including the AES-256-based link encryption, ratchets, et cetera), and all protocol additions that distinguish the modern implementation from the earliest pre-1.0.0 beta formats. If an implementation speaks today's Reticulum protocol, it is, in all relevant respects, built on Reticulum-licensed work.
The license is a permissive license. It grants the full range of rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell the software, free of charge; subject to three conditions, which are reproduced here verbatim:
@ -546,10 +548,10 @@ Void Grants: Legal Foundations of Machine-Generated Code
A grant of rights is only as real as the rights behind it. A license conveys what its issuer holds, and nothing more. A derivative may be distributed only under whatever license covers what it took. And over a work that a machine originated, no human holds anything at all.
Each of these statements is a matter of settled statute and case law, and this document sets out the authorities, in order. The conclusions they support are:
Each of these statements is a matter of settled statute and case law, and this section sets out the authorities, in order. The conclusions they support are:
#. A software implementation generated from a licensed work by a machine, published under its operator's claimed copyright and license, conveys rights the operator never possessed.
#. Its grant is void. The projects, products, and promises built upon such grants stand on nothing. A field of void grants is a minefield for everyone who crosses it.
#. A software implementation generated from a licensed work by a machine, published under its operator's claimed copyright and license, **conveys rights the operator never possessed**.
#. **Its grant is void**. The projects, products, and promises built upon such grants stand on nothing. A field of void grants is a minefield for everyone who crosses it.
This document is a general examination of copyright law as it applies to machine-generated code. It is not legal advice.
@ -577,8 +579,7 @@ The exclusive right at issue is defined in section 106:
Violation of any of these rights is infringement. 17 U.S.C. § 501(a).
Taken together, the provisions yield a syllogism that is difficult to improve upon and impossible to escape:
Taken together, the provisions yield a construction that is difficult to improve upon and impossible to escape:
#. **A port is a translation.** A work that takes a program written in one language and from it produces a program written in another language, implementing the same behavior, is a translation of the original - whatever mechanism performed it, and however the surface presentation differs.
#. **A translation is a derivative work.** Section 101 says so, explicitly.
@ -627,7 +628,7 @@ The requirement traces to the ordinary meaning of the statutory term. In *Burrow
----
**A machine does not owe expression its origin; it produces it. No court has recognized copyright in material created by non-humans, and the courts that have addressed the question have rejected it. If you create by machine generation, you do not own the output.**
**A machine does not owe expression its origin; it reproduces it. No court has recognized copyright in material created by non-humans, and the courts that have addressed the question have rejected it. If you create by machine generation, you do not own the output.**
----
@ -641,7 +642,7 @@ The Copyright Office's registration guidance applies the requirement to generati
* *Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence*\ , 88 Fed. Reg. 16190, 16192 (Mar. 16, 2023)
And it states the consequence: "If a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it" (\ *Id.*\ ).
And it states the consequence: *"If a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it"* (\ *Id.*\ ).
On the role of prompts, the Office is equally explicit: when a system receives a prompt and produces a work in response, *"these prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist - they identify what the prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are implemented in its output"* (\ *Id.*\ ).