"Courts have ruled that, because there are so many different ways to express any software of nontrivial size, the way the code is written (including comments, variable names, organization, etc ) represents sufficient creative expression to be protected."
If I removed comments and/or translated the code in a literal manner, I'm sure it would still qualify as plagiarism in school. Are you implying that it would not or should not be a copyright violation in that case? I have no idea legally, but I would assume the worst.
> If I removed comments and/or translated the code in a literal manner, I'm sure it would still qualify as plagiarism in school.
What's plagiarism and copyright violation have nothing to do with each other. Academics routinely copy large segments of text and rely on fair use exemptions to avoid breaching copyright. Meanwhile, copying a couple innocuous sentences can rise to be plagiarism when it would not be a substantive copyright violation.
If I removed comments and/or translated the code in a literal manner, I'm sure it would still qualify as plagiarism in school. Are you implying that it would not or should not be a copyright violation in that case? I have no idea legally, but I would assume the worst.