diff --git a/COPYING.txt b/COPYING.txt
index 8e7130083b4..1a05a211a01 100644
--- a/COPYING.txt
+++ b/COPYING.txt
@@ -10,3 +10,10 @@ made to go from Pyrex to Cython are so licensed.
 
 See LICENSE.txt for more details.
 
+------------------
+
+The output of a Cython compilation is NOT considered a derivative
+work of Cython.  Specifically, though the compilation process may
+embed snippets of varying lengths into the final output, these
+snippets, as embedded in the output, do not encumber the resulting
+output with any license restrictions.