Copyright

Copyright law
http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html

While the overall subject of copyright law is far beyond the scope of this document, some basics are in order. Under the current copyright law, copyrights are implicit in the creation of a new work and reside with the creator, unless otherwise assigned. In general the copyright applies only to the new work, not the material the work was derived from, nor those portions of the derivative material included in the new work.

Copyright law admits to three general categories of works:

Original Work A new work that is not derived from an existing work. Derivative Work Work that is derived from, includes or amends existing works. Compilations A work that is a compilation of existing new and derivative works. The fundamental concept is that there is primacy of the copyright, that is a copyright of a derivative work does not affect the rights held by the owner of the copyright of the original work, rather only the part added. Likewise the copyright of a compilation does not affect the rights of the owner of the included works, only the compilation as an entity.

It is vitally important to understand that copyrights are broad protections as defined by national and international copyright law. The "copyright notices" usually included in source files are not copyrights, but rather notices that a party asserts that they hold copyright to the material or to part of the material. Typically these notices are associated with license terms which grant permissions subject to copyright law and with disclaimers that state the position of the copyright holder/distributor with respect to liability surrounding use of the material.

Permissions - the flip side