From: tmoran@acm.org
Subject: Re: Artistically creative expression has no role in software design
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 03:44:24 GMT
Date: 2004-07-21T03:44:24+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <sElLc.114199$WX.64280@attbi_s51> (raw)
In-Reply-To: opsbgq77rb5afhvo@localhost
> > Think about it this way: What if you design a program in Ada, and I
> > make a "work alike" program written in say PL/I. Did I violate your
> > copyright? I think I would agree that if I "reverse engineered" your
> > code--or just read the comments--and used the same design I was
> > infringing. Even if my version used char(*) varying where you used
> > Unbounded_String, and so on.
>
> Which just goes to show the absurdity of the concept of intellectual
> property as an ideology.
I suggest it shows the absurdity of thinking that expertise in
software engineering carries over to expertise in law. (IANAL)
From "The Software Developer's and Marketer's Legal Companion",
ISBN 0-201-62276-9 page 2: A fundamental concept of copyright law is
that it grants exclusive rights to the particular expression that
constitutes the work. The Copyright Act expressly provides that
copyright protection does not extend to "any idea, procedure, system,
method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery" underlying the
program. ... the level of originality required is very, very low ...
The legal test contains two elements (1) a level of originality
described by judges as "very slight" or "minimal," and (2) independent
creation.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2004-07-21 3:44 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2004-07-19 18:46 Artistically creative expression has no role in software design Marc A. Criley
2004-07-19 18:56 ` Ed Falis
2004-07-19 19:03 ` Hyman Rosen
2004-07-19 23:24 ` Marc A. Criley
2004-07-20 0:27 ` Nick Roberts
2004-07-20 7:40 ` Hyman Rosen
2004-07-20 15:24 ` Nick Roberts
2004-07-20 16:00 ` Marc A. Criley
2004-07-20 18:46 ` Jeffrey Carter
2004-07-20 22:41 ` Randy Brukardt
2004-08-09 16:14 ` Richard Riehle
2004-07-19 20:49 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-07-19 23:27 ` Marc A. Criley
2004-07-20 9:05 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-07-20 0:31 ` Nick Roberts
2004-07-20 1:45 ` Alexander E. Kopilovich
2004-07-20 8:20 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2004-07-20 14:28 ` Martin Krischik
2004-07-20 15:02 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2004-07-20 18:02 ` Wes Groleau
2004-07-21 9:30 ` Martin Krischik
2004-07-21 20:22 ` Simon Wright
2004-07-23 8:00 ` Rolf Ebert
2004-07-23 21:04 ` Simon Wright
2004-07-21 20:17 ` Simon Wright
2004-07-21 22:15 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-07-23 20:59 ` Simon Wright
2004-07-21 1:05 ` Robert I. Eachus
2004-07-21 1:17 ` Ed Falis
2004-07-21 3:44 ` tmoran [this message]
2004-07-21 4:09 ` tmoran
2004-07-21 9:38 ` Ludovic Brenta
2004-07-22 14:11 ` Marc A. Criley
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