I assume if they just tweak things by hand slightly then it becomes a protected derivative work. For example, if I modify Shakespeare, my modifications are protected.
They have to tweak it more than a little bit for it to count. It has to be actually transformative, meaning it has to be changed enough that it no longer serves the same function, something not easily achieved with a texture, sound or 3d model without effectively doing the whole thing by hand. For comparison, in your Shakespeare example, changing a few words here or there isn’t enough. You would have to nearly completely rewrite anything that you would want to copyright.
I assume if they just tweak things by hand slightly then it becomes a protected derivative work. For example, if I modify Shakespeare, my modifications are protected.
They have to tweak it more than a little bit for it to count. It has to be actually transformative, meaning it has to be changed enough that it no longer serves the same function, something not easily achieved with a texture, sound or 3d model without effectively doing the whole thing by hand. For comparison, in your Shakespeare example, changing a few words here or there isn’t enough. You would have to nearly completely rewrite anything that you would want to copyright.