Need Some Clarification About Copyright

So we all know the story about CraftBukkit being taken down by Wolvereness' copyright claim, and in his statement, he lists a commit (https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/commit/0a0fee8be25bf8a732abff2d66a89a64614b6327) and the page that shows commits by him (https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/commits?author=Wolvereness). So, with that, comes two questions:

1) If we were to remove/replace his code, does that void his copyright?
2) If the above answer is yes, how can we go about doing this when we cannot access/fork https://github.com/Bukkit/CraftBukkit?

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know that much about copyright, and if you still have rights even if your content is removed (I assume you wouldn't, since your contributions no longer affect the product). And yes, I know replacing his code would be a bit of work, but not an impossible task. Maybe pointless, since the Bukkit team is mostly gone, but still possible to do.

Any answers/discussion would be great!

 

ERROR372 Here's my current stance on it, based on what I know of.

The CraftBukkit program is going to have Wolvereness' code removed from it. Once his code is gone, they're no longer using his code, so then they can build from there--that is, if there's anyone who can do so. I heard something about Dinnerbone updating it himself, with something about unofficial API and stuff like that (Before anyone pounces on me if I'm incorrect, I have no idea what's going on with that. This is just what I know of.), but I'm not too sure if that'll succeed. As for the forks of CraftBukkit, I have no idea how those are going to go anywhere. I'm pretty sure one of the big things about this CraftBukkit controversy is that the program originally, technically illegally (don't pounce on me for that, either), decompiled Mojang's Minecraft Server code in order to write API off of it. If the other programs, such as Sponge, Rainbow, Arrow, etc., aren't doing the same thing and are not using CraftBukkit, I have no idea how they're getting anywhere.

I've kind of decided that I'll stop holding my breath for anything. I'm going to wait for Microsoft's official word on the whole thing--after all, they "own" the Bukkit project, since they bought Mojang which already "owned" it. If Microsoft hasn't already heard about this entire thing and begun a plan to fix it, I'd say Minecraft is in big trouble.

 

In short no. Wolvereness' rights to his code remain. However, yes, he would lack standing to challenge the distribution of the remaining code (which would be rendered pretty useless given close to 1/3 of it would be missing).

The larger issue that there is no way to comply with the chosen license remains and every other contributer can issue a DMCA notice. The fact is Bukkit and Craftbukkit have been in an intrinsically unstable position. At no point could anyone really distribute it legally, just all who had any standing to object chose not to. Mojang (and now Microsoft) can object due to the inclusion of code derived from their work (the Minecraft server) and all contributers can because the license forbids linking with non-GPL compatible code. The unlicensed code derived from Mojang's works can only be licensed by Mojang (or, again, now MS) to make it possible to comply with the GPL. No signs point to any intentions on their part of doing so.

There are only two possible ways to resolve this in a way that permits Craftbukkit to be distributed:
1) Mojang/Microsoft choose to license the code that is derived from their work under the GPL, or a compatible
license. Nothing can force them to do so, and they haven't publicly entertained the option.
2) All contributed code is relicensed by each and EVERY one of the contributers. If any contributer doesn't agree to a relicensing, their code must be excised and a clean-room re-coding would need to be done. The scope of work of tracking down every contributer, securing their agreement, and/or replacing their code is enormous. Nevermind that you still would have to find devs willing to make the changes needed to support newer MC versions. Oh, and none of those who are intimately familiar with the code seem to want to work with it at this point. For the amount of effort you would sink into this endeavour, you could just start a new project and likely end up with a better result.

 

pookeythekid You are correct that Dinnerbone stated he'd update it himself, however due to the lack of response or anything by them, I'm guessing that's been thrown away due to the DMCA takedown (they probably feel it isn't worth their time or money). Dinnerbone has stated that the API he is developing is more robust. He did recently tweet this: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/516548988892643328, but it's a bit unclear if that's for the MC API or something else.

As for Sponge, I'm really not sure where that stands. I mean, if you compare it to Bukkit, it's nearly the exact same. I'm not sure on how exactly the copyright works in regards to copying code, since it looks almost the exact same. I can't imagine just copy/pasting code avoids the copyright claim by Wolvereness, so if Sponge devs are doing that, they could find themselves in legal trouble.

LokiChaos I'm not sure exactly how much of the code was "worthwhile" code by him. Also don't know if pulling pending changes counts as his code either (doubtful), since about 1/3 of all his changes are pulling changes (3,000 of which is definitely attributed to another coder: https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/commit/8a1dbc38da3cfb3ccf7eee4f802d3d1bd3122391).

Pretty sure if Mojang were to go with GPL, their stuff would have to be open source (or so I've heard), which I'm sure they're not going to do. Not sure how many of the contributors would agree to re-licensing, but I'm also not sure if it'd be a big deal. https://github.com/Bukkit/Bukkit-Bleeding/graphs/contributors We can see from that, that really Dinnerbone, EvilSeph, Wolvereness, and Grum were the major contributors to the Bukkit project. I'm sure that Dinnerbone could rewrite their commits in a matter of a couple weeks. But for him, it's probably not worth it, since they're (supposedly) working on the official API.

 

ERROR372 For your reply to me, yeah, Sponge may be in big trouble if they're using CraftBukkit itself, or if they're using decompiled Minecraft Server code.

For your response to LokiChaos, I don't think it would be a big deal, either, for the other third-party contributors. I heard that they pretty much have the exact same copyright (or copyright-like, however that would work) rights to their code as Wolvereness does, however I don't think most of them would care as much as Wolvereness did. Wolvereness contributed a ton of code to CraftBukkit; it makes sense that he has more motivation to protect his copyright. However, other third-party contributors didn't contribute nearly as much as he did, so I don't think they would mind letting their code be re-licensed. After all, it was all originally contributing to a free project out of a kind heart; I'm sure these people still have the kind hearts that they had before.