Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

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:

...The author of a work of visual art (1) shall have the right (A) to claim authorship of that work and (B) to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art which he or she did not create; (2) shall have the right to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation.... (17 U.S.C. § 106A.)

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.