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ADR-0861: Drop "and Claude (Anthropic)" from fork copyright lines

  • Status: Accepted
  • Date: 2026-05-30
  • Deciders: lusoris
  • Tags: license, docs, governance

Context

The fork's wholly-new files have carried the line Copyright 2026 Lusoris and Claude (Anthropic) since ADR-0025 / ADR-0105 formalised the dual-notice pattern. The original intent was to acknowledge that Claude (Anthropic) authored or co-authored the file content during agent-driven sessions.

A copyright notice, however, asserts a legal rights claim. Anthropic is not a rights holder in this codebase: the company does not own the output of its model under its own terms of service, and the user (the human author who directs the session) is the sole human rights holder under the fork's BSD-3-Clause-Plus-Patent license. Carrying Anthropic in the copyright line therefore overstates the legal position and may confuse downstream consumers about who can be approached for relicensing or attribution exceptions.

The VMAFx rebrand (2026-05-27 decisions) is the natural moment to align the copyright notice with the legal reality.

Decision

We will drop "and Claude (Anthropic)" from the fork's copyright line. Wholly-new fork files now carry Copyright 2026 Lusoris (single notice) instead of Copyright 2026 Lusoris and Claude (Anthropic) (dual notice).

The change is applied:

  1. To every existing in-tree file with the dual-notice string, except files preserved for audit-trail or rebase-stability reasons (see Alternatives considered below).
  2. To the rule text in CLAUDE.md §12 r7 and CONTRIBUTING.md so future files are created with the single-notice form.

ADR-0025 and ADR-0105 (the original dual-notice ADRs) remain on-record as the historical decision; this ADR supersedes their copyright-line format recommendation only — the rest of those ADRs (Netflix header preservation, year-range bumping, license identifier) stays in force.

The credit Claude (Anthropic) used to receive in the copyright line is preserved in commit-message Co-Authored-By: trailers, which is the appropriate surface for authorship acknowledgement that is not a legal rights claim.

Alternatives considered

Option Pros Cons Why not chosen
Keep the dual notice indefinitely Zero churn; preserves the historical acknowledgement style; matches what's already in tree Asserts a legal rights claim Anthropic does not actually hold; risks confusing downstream consumers about who to contact for licensing exceptions Rejected — overstates the legal position.
Replace with Copyright 2026 Lusoris (chosen) Aligns the notice with the actual rights holder; trivial substitution; keeps acknowledgement available via commit trailers One-time churn across ~744 files; supersedes the format guidance in ADR-0025 / ADR-0105 Chosen.
Replace with Copyright 2026 Lusoris (with assistance from Claude (Anthropic)) Keeps the acknowledgement visible in-file Still potentially misread as a rights claim; verbose; non-standard SPDX-friendly format Rejected — the goal is to avoid the rights-claim implication, not to phrase it differently.
Drop the line entirely and rely on git history + LICENSE Minimal text in tree Loses the per-file copyright marker that downstream LICENSE auditors look for Rejected — the per-file notice is useful even without the dual party.

Consequences

  • Positive: Copyright line accurately reflects the legal rights holder. Removes a potential downstream-confusion vector. Single-notice form is shorter and simpler.
  • Negative: One-time large diff (~744 files, mechanical 1-line changes) across the tree. ADR-0025 / ADR-0105's format guidance is partially superseded — readers of those ADRs need this ADR for the current rule.
  • Neutral / follow-ups:
  • The following files are preserved at the dual-notice form for audit / rebase stability and are out of scope for this ADR:
    • AGENTS.md and core/AGENTS.md — owned by in-flight PR #234 (rebase invariant).
    • docs/rebase-notes.md — owned by in-flight PR #321.
    • docs/adr/0025-copyright-handling-dual-notice.md, docs/adr/0105-copyright-handling-dual-notice.md, docs/adr/0312-ffmpeg-patches-vmaf-tune-integration.md — ADR bodies are immutable once Accepted (CLAUDE.md global-rules ADR-maintenance rule).
    • docs/research/0003-ssimulacra2-port-sourcing.md — research audit trail.
    • ffmpeg-patches/0002-add-vmaf_pre-filter.patch, ffmpeg-patches/0007-libvmaf-tune-qpfile-unified.patch, ffmpeg-patches/0008-add-libvmaf_tune-filter.patch — ffmpeg-patches embed git-index hashes; the patches will adopt the new notice the next time they are regenerated against master via refresh-ffmpeg-patches.
  • The deferred files listed above carry the historical notice; this is expected and not a lint violation.
  • New ffmpeg-patch regeneration after this PR lands will pick up the single-notice form automatically.

References

  • ADR-0025: Copyright handling — dual-notice pattern (partially superseded by this ADR for the copyright-line format).
  • ADR-0105: Copyright handling — dual-notice pattern (Phase 2 restatement; partially superseded by this ADR).
  • Companion in-tree memory: /home/kilian/.claude/projects/-home-kilian-dev-vmaf/memory/project_copyright_lusoris_only.md (records the 2026-05-27 lock).
  • Source: req — user direction 2026-05-27, recorded in the rebrand decisions: "drop 'and Claude (Anthropic)' from fork copyright lines. Anthropic is not a rights holder."