: Copyright on derivative work of the symbol of access I made some icons for the german definitions of access derived from the well known symbol of access for a website. Now I have multiple

@Turnbaugh909

In general, a work derived from a free work is subject to regular copyright and thus you cannot plainly use it, even if the derived work’s creator put it online for free. This is part of the Berne Convention:


Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work.


However – and this is my personal useless opinion – I would say that your symbol sufficiently deviates from the intermediate symbol to not be counted as a derivative work. Most commonalities can be traced back to the original, free symbol, and using rounded forms to represent humans is not copyrightable. However, when it comes to this, this is upon a court to decide, as I am not aware of a legislation which would have laws detailing what is a derivative to this extent. Thus, all you can do is take a look at comparable precedences (which is more helpful, if the relevant legal system is based on these), if there are any.

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@Si6392903

I'm pretty sure that you are free to use it.

These Icons are made to unify and to help people. Everyone knows what that icon means, so it would be stupid to forbid people to use it when they need it.

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