If I have to study a previous project of someone else to learn how to solve specific problems in my current project, then I'm obviously creating a derivative work of the studied project in my mind.
If I write down these thoughts then this document becomes a derivative work of the studied project.
The key is, that I wouldn't have been able to create my project without studying the other one.
No. IANAL, but your notion of derivative work is too broad. You'd make every work in the world a derivative of the rest.
In your world, Newton would have said "I could only write my derivative work because I've stood on the originals of giants".
You may also have to read electronics textbooks to come up with your design, and that does not make your design a derivative
work of the textbook. The point is whether you could have used a different work to learn the same and still produce the work you produced.
If you could then your work is not a derivative of the one you learned from. It is a derivative work when
you need the original to produce the derivative, like in the examples you cited. You can't translate or abridge a text
if you haven't seen it. But you can learn elsewhere what you write in a text or consider in a design. Notice that
your source does not include "summarise", just "abridge" or "condensate". This is because to abridge or condensate you
basically take the original, select parts and remove others, so the original is still recognizable in the derivative work.
When you summarise you can write the important notions with your own words, and therefore the work you create
is exactly the same as if you had read a different text or learn the notions in a different way.
Different kinds of work (and jurisdictions) have different standards for when something is a derivative work or not, you need
to ask a lawyer, or run through the courts.I think for music there's a number of seconds or notes above which it is considerd derivative work,
and below not. For scripts, theatre and cinema it is controversial whether something is plagiarism or "homage". In software
you'll find I believe the FSF and the Apache Software Foundation with diverging views on whether dynamic linking constitues
derivative work.
And even in one field, common wisdom sometimes fail. Remember Oracle vs Google for Java in Android? Oracle though using header files
was deriving works, and Google not, the first judge sided with Google but surprisingly to most of the field the appeals judge
said it was a derivative after all, but back in the original court it was considered fair use so a legit derivative work and
maybe it is still pending for appeal). I mean sometimes everybody works for years thinking some legal detail is obvious and
a judge comes around and changes all (like that decision in Germany from a judge that didn't understand how open revision control
works and considered source repository not enough of a proof of authorship, fortunately not seting precedent AFAIK).
What I mean is that take my explanation with a grain of salt, I'm no expert but even experts disagree sometimes on what is
a derivative work.
I argue, that applying knowledge to my project, that I learned by studying ED's schematics constitutes a translation.
A translation? From what language to what language?.
If you produce schematics that replicate parts of ED's (Nikolaus' in fact?) schematics then you may be making a derivative
work. If not you aren't. But I don't know eactly what's the standard for electronic designs, it seems some coincidence might
be implicit to the functionality (like pin names or some component values) and not constitue derivative work, but some other (like track layout or so)
might be derivative work. I don't know. And there might be sui generis rights besides copyright in electronic designs in Europe, I don't know.
In linguistics a translation often doesn't contain a single word of the original text, yet the original text is essential for creating the translated text. I don't see why it should be any different with design schematics.
The words in the translation are considered equivalent to words in the original for it to be a translation. Even if it is not literal translation, it'll have enough detail on the proper nouns, referents, concepts and order, and the semantic equivalence, that it is practically impossible to come up with a translation of a work without having seen/heard/read the original.
