“apparently the view of the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted.”
Night view of the Eiffel Tower is copyrighted in the EU.
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Alot of the conversation I have seen so far has been US-centric. That's fair, given that this was posted during US business hours, but for the US I don't really think this discussion applies as much. Works created by the United States Government are not covered by copyright in the US, effectively making them public domain _in the US_. See link "But—", you say, "—the code the NSA is publishing has a license attached!" Indeed, that confused me too, until I found the answer at link : >…copyright exclusion for works of the U.S. Government is not intended to have any impact on protection of these works abroad (S. REP. NO. 473, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 56 (1976)). Therefore, the U.S. Government may obtain protection in other countries depending on the treatment of government works by the national copyright law of the particular country. Copyright is sometimes asserted by U.S. Government agencies outside the United States. So, Public Domain within the US, and Copywritten (but OSS-licensed) outside of the US. My understanding is that copyright in EU countries is much more complicated. For example, apparently the view of the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted. See this video As for anything Classified in the US, there are laws controlling distribution. So, take something GPL-licensed: If you take, use, and modify the software, you are not required to provide the code unless you distribute the product to others. See the question "Since U.S. Government works are not protected by copyrigh