wmartin@almsa-1.arpa (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) (02/28/86)
First off, thanks to Jordan & Lisa Breslow for that long and informative (and well-written) article on Copyright Law that came out about 10 days back. Reading it and other related net discussion inspires this query: Programmer Sam Smith writes a whiz-bang great & wonderful program. He registers it with the copyright office, includes the required copyright notices, and does everything right. Unethical person John Doe gets an electronic-format copy of Smith's program, modifies it by deleting all the copyright notices, marks it "public domain", and uploads it to a bunch of popular BBS's, naming it differently than Smith's original name and also giving the program various different names on the different BBS's. From there, naturally, hundreds of people grab copies, and some upload it to other BBS's. In a few days, there are thousands of copies of this program floating around the country, with various names, and, by now, many have already been modified or altered so they are no longer identical to the original. So, just where does Smith stand and what should he do, in practical terms? It will take extensive investigation and resources to discover and determine that John Doe was the one that originally stole the program, and it may be impossible to now locate all copies and derivatives of the original program. Should Smith just eat the injustice and give up? Or what? Will Martin
drears@ardc.arpa (FSAC) (03/03/86)
Will:
If I was Smith I would give up. If the facts could be proven he would have
an excellent lawsuit against John Doe. The problem is proving it. I would
doubt that there would be any witnesses to the actual modifications. It might
be easy to prove he sent messages with the modified program included but then
there are problems with this. Federal Rules of Evidence would not allow the
message to be admissible in court because it would not be a real copy. If I had
my copy of the rules with me I would cite the exact rule. The other problem
with this is John Doe could claim the modification was done by someone else
and sent to him. Remember the burden of proof would alway be on the plantiff.
As far as of the bullentin board operators go he would have an even more
difficult time (at least until more laws are passed depriving sysops of first
amendment rights). He would have to prove that the syops knew or should have
known copyrighted material would have passed over the network.
I think he would still retain the copyright but the cost of enforcing the
copyright would would make it unfeasibile. A copyright is only good if you
are willing to take it to court to defend against it.
Dennis
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: These are my personal views only and are not to be
confused with the views of my employer. I will not assume any liability for the
accuracy of the above comments.LOUROBINSON@sri-ai.arpa (03/04/86)
Kindly remove me from this distribution. Thank you. -------
drears@ardc.arpa (FSAC) (03/04/86)
Will:
I want to clarify a statement I made last time about the message not
meeting the qualifications of the federal Rules of Evidence. Rule 1001 (3)
states:
(3) Original.-....If data are stored in a computer or similiar device,
any printout or other output device readable by sight , shown to
reflect the data accurately, is an "original".
Rule 1001 (4):
(4) Duplcate.-A "duplicate" is a counterpart produced by the same
impression as the orgininal, or from the same matrix, or by means of
photography, including enlargements and minatures, or by mechanical or
electronic re-recording, or by other eqivalent techniques which
accurately reproduces the orginal.
In my opinion this would be a zerox (tm) copy of a hard copy listing of
the program NOT a hard copy of the program. Is this clear?
Rule 1002:
Rule 1002. Requirement of Original
To prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the
orginial writing, recording, or photograph is required , except as
otherwise provided in these rules or by Act of Congress.
It seems to me the orginial of the message is what John Doe wrote. What he
sent out was nothing more than duplicate copies which do meet the standard of
these rules for admissibility.
Even it was admissible It would be hard to prove the data that was recieved
was not altered or even if John Doe himself sent it.
Dennis
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This is only a opinion. I make no claim to the
accuracy of the above information.oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (03/05/86)
In article <1411@brl-smoke.ARPA> wmartin@almsa-1.arpa (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) writes: >First off, thanks to Jordan & Lisa Breslow for that long and informative >(and well-written) article on Copyright Law that came out about 10 days >back. > Same here. Now for my question: what exactly is copyrightable? Is a language definition (e.g. C)? If so, would the copyright have to *specifically* include said definition? In other words, if I invented a language called, say, Tortuga, and copyrighted and sold a compiler, could somebody else write their own version of Tortuga, without fear of legal action? Would they have to call it something else, or could they in fact call it Tortuga, assuming I haven't trademarked the name? Even given all the preceeding protective measures, would it be allowable to call what is essentially a Tortuga compiler something else, but claim (and advertise) 100% compatibility with Tortuga source? And going even further (Apple vs DRI {GEM} & Atari vs Whomever {Pac-man} notwithstanding), can *any* copyrighted program be rebuilt from the ground up by a second party, preserving functionality, and be a legally viable product? (Or is this where patents come into the picture?) Any discussion on this subject would be appreciated, even if you actually know what you're talking about (:-). - Joel Plutchak {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster
barmar@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Barry Margolin) (03/06/86)
Let me preface by warning that I am not educated in copyright law, but I have been reading what I can about software copyright in the trade press. In article <2017@uwmacc.UUCP> oyster@uwmacc.UUCP writes: > Now for my question: what exactly is copyrightable? Is a language >definition (e.g. C)? If so, would the copyright have to *specifically* >include said definition? I don't think you can copyright the language itself. Copyright protection is intended to protect documents, not concepts. This has of late been defined to include computer programs and printouts/displays (see below). In the case of a language definition, you can copyright the document that describes the language, and you can copyright an implementation of a compiler, but you can't copyright the language itself, which is an abstract concept. > And going even further (Apple vs DRI {GEM} & Atari vs >Whomever {Pac-man} notwithstanding), can *any* copyrighted program be rebuilt >from the ground up by a second party, preserving functionality, and be a >legally viable product? (Or is this where patents come into the picture?) In these cases, the copyright infringement was not against the program logic. The complaint was that the screen displays had been copied. In the Pac-Man case, the settlement was that the layout of the maze and the shapes of the players were changed. For another example, there is currently a game called Mouse Stampede for the Macintosh; it plays almost exactly like the arcade game Millipede, but all the characters were changed. And in the GEM case, the settlement was that some icons and window features were changed; no functionality was changed, though. A good rule of thumb in such cases is to ask yourself whether the potential copy looks like it was designed by looking at a photograph of the original. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
eric@chronon.UUCP (Eric Black) (03/07/86)
> Now for my question: what exactly is copyrightable? Is a language >definition (e.g. C)? If so, would the copyright have to *specifically* >include said definition? In other words, if I invented a language called, >say, Tortuga, and copyrighted and sold a compiler, could somebody else >write their own version of Tortuga, without fear of legal action? Would >they have to call it something else, or could they in fact call it Tortuga, >assuming I haven't trademarked the name? Even given all the preceeding >protective measures, would it be allowable to call what is essentially >a Tortuga compiler something else, but claim (and advertise) 100% compatibility >with Tortuga source? And going even further (Apple vs DRI {GEM} & Atari vs >Whomever {Pac-man} notwithstanding), can *any* copyrighted program be rebuilt >from the ground up by a second party, preserving functionality, and be a >legally viable product? (Or is this where patents come into the picture?) > Any discussion on this subject would be appreciated, even if you actually >know what you're talking about (:-). > > - Joel Plutchak > {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster I would think that the description of the specification itself, i.e. a reference manual, would be copyrightable. The language itself would not be. Let's say, for example, that you create a new language, let's call it 'Beb'. You may publish a specification of that computer language, and the specification itself, and the user manual that you thoughtfully publish alongside, would be copyrightable. The *ideas* contained in them, i.e. the computer language itself, are *not* copyrightable. Your specific embodiment, the wording, the precise phrases used to get the message across, *are* copyrightable. You might, depending on who you are, register the very name of your language, "Beb", as a trademark so as to retain some sort of control on those who try to use your language's name on something else, since your wording may be copyrighted, your particular implementation (compiler and other environment) may be copyrighted, but the ideas may not be. Courts point out repeatedly that the written equivalent to "reverse engineering", what amounts to rewording and/or redescribing something which is copyrighted is *not* an infringement of that copyright. The Apple case is based on something altogether different, a "visual copyright", the same device as used by jewelry designers, sculptors, and other artists to protect their creative works from copying. The idea of the Apple-type desktop/workbench cannot be copyrighted, but the suit rested on the concept of the visual appearance being too close to the original (however bad an idea we all may realize it is to restrict the dissemination of that appearance). The "attract" phases of video games, the canned examples of play, are similarly protected, by *appearance*, not ideas. -- Eric Black "Garbage In, Gospel Out" UUCP: {sun,pyramid,hplabs,amdcad}!chronon!eric VOICE: (415) 941-0403 US SNAIL: Chronon Computer Corp. 2570 El Camino Real W. Suite 206 Mountain View, CA 94040