On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 08:20:24AM -0400, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
<snip>
(Another aside: The Foundation can, at its discretion, create an official "layout" for the installer CD and then Copyright that layout, such that nobody else can use it. While it's possible, it can effectively "cramp" the software and innovation surrounding it, and it's not advisable. Others then must choose different "layouts" for their installers of their derived works, and this would require heavy modifications to installers and the like to find files in new locations.)
I call BS. The Lotus 1-2-3 fiasco and the Apple vs. MS suit are the two things that come immediately to mind as legal precedence. You can't copyright a "layout" (read: look and feel, menu structure, screen order, etc.). If you are referring to directory layout on the disk itself, I think you will have a VERY hard time trying to argue that it's copyrightable -- since layout is effectively the command-line look-and-feel for a given disk. You don't have to look far for proof on that, either; moving between various *ix distros, it's easy to get lost when one distro stores its files in a different place from where you're expecting.
If you can show me legal precedence for your statements, I'll be happy to reconsider my stance. I assume if you're making these claims, you have something to back them up, and I'm interested in hearing what your support is.
<snip>
A little bit about Copyright Law, now. A developer holds copyright to the portions of the code that (s)he contributed to the project, and that is all. The group that is responsible for putting it together, then owns the copyright on the layout, and so forth. So, if releases are the Foundation's job, then whether they claim their Copyright or not, it is, in fact, their Copyright. If someone other then the Foundation packages it for the ReactOS web site, then *THEY* hold the Copyright, and they can therefore claim that they are "the" Copyright holder for the Official Distribution of the ReactOS project.
Again, I'm going to call BS. You don't get copyright on an aggregation of work. If I went and copied all the articles (and ONLY the articles) out of a newspaper that ran only syndicated stories, the real copyright owners would have to come after me -- the newspaper could not. The only way the paper could come after me is if I accidentally copied content that (1) one of their writers wrote as a "work for hire," and that the paper holds the copyright to, or (2) I inadvertently copied one of their trade/service marks, implying their endorsement of the copied content when no such endorsement exists.
<snip>
I'm not a lawyer. If you can show me something in copyright law (and, to be clean, I'm talking US copyright law) that proves me wrong, I'll be happy to either adjust my argument or, if I'm outright wrong, eat my words. However, I have spent some quality time with title 17 (looking for loopholes), and I'm pretty confident that I'm on-target.
Cheers,
-- Travis
Legal precedence (1-2-3, Apple vs. MS): http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/articles/int-prop/software-copyright.html
Title 17 US Copyright Law http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
__________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html
Hi,
--- Quandary ai2097@yahoo.com wrote:
I call BS. The Lotus 1-2-3 fiasco and the Apple vs. MS suit are the two things that come immediately to mind as legal precedence. You can't copyright a "layout" (read: look and feel, menu structure, screen order, etc.). If you are referring to directory layout on the disk itself, I think you will have a VERY hard time trying to argue that it's copyrightable -- since layout is effectively the command-line look-and-feel for a given disk. You don't have to look far for proof on that, either; moving between various *ix distros, it's easy to get lost when one distro stores its files in a different place from where you're expecting.
If you can show me legal precedence for your statements, I'll be happy to reconsider my stance. I assume if you're making these claims, you have something to back them up, and I'm interested in hearing what your support is.
You are correct as far as I read it but IANAL. I don't think look and feel or layout is copyrightable. Sure you can publish a layout spec and that spec is now a copyright work but not the layout itself.
Again, I'm going to call BS. You don't get copyright on an aggregation of work. If I went and copied all the articles (and ONLY the articles) out of a newspaper that ran only syndicated stories, the real copyright owners would have to come after me -- the newspaper could not. The only way the paper could come after me is if I accidentally copied content that (1) one of their writers wrote as a "work for hire," and that the paper holds the copyright to, or (2) I inadvertently copied one of their trade/service marks, implying their endorsement of the copied content when no such endorsement exists.
Correct also as far as I can tell.
Thanks Steven
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160
Quandary wrote:
I call BS. The Lotus 1-2-3 fiasco and the Apple vs. MS suit are the two things that come immediately to mind as legal precedence. You can't copyright a "layout" (read: look and feel, menu structure, screen order, etc.). If you are referring to directory layout on the disk itself, I think you will have a VERY hard time trying to argue that it's copyrightable -- since layout is effectively the command-line look-and-feel for a given disk. You don't have to look far for proof on that, either; moving between various *ix distros, it's easy to get lost when one distro stores its files in a different place from where you're expecting.
There was no direct layout issues there. If you'd like to see an example such as what I've described, you may take a look at OpenBSD's use of this:
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq3.html#ISO
This is something that the OpenBSD people (specifically, Theo de Raadt) have held for years to help use the law to provide a means of securing their distribution and making it official.
It is protected by Copyright because it is subject to Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 102, Paragraph (a):
(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
The file-system layout of the ISO image that the OpenBSD project has is not a "look and feel" of anything, it is a particular layout of a filesystem image. Saying that they cannot copyright an image of a filesystem is like saying that you cannot copyright an image taken with a camera: You cannot copyright the concept of ISO or JPG, for example, but you can copyright one particular incarnation of an ISO or JPG, in a particular pattern of bits, as a compliation. Walnut Creek and other CD-compilations have done this for years. The CD Compilation gets the copyright, not the general system.
Again, I'm going to call BS. You don't get copyright on an aggregation of work. If I went and copied all the articles (and ONLY the articles) out of a newspaper that ran only syndicated stories, the real copyright owners would have to come after me -- the newspaper could not. The only way the paper could come after me is if I accidentally copied content that (1) one of their writers wrote as a "work for hire," and that the paper holds the copyright to, or (2) I inadvertently copied one of their trade/service marks, implying their endorsement of the copied content when no such endorsement exists.
Copyright on an "aggregation of work," as you have called it falls under Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 103, Paragraphs (a) and (b): Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and Derivative Works. See text:
(a) The subject matter of copyright as specified by section 102 includes compilations and derivative works, but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
I'm not a lawyer. If you can show me something in copyright law (and, to be clean, I'm talking US copyright law) that proves me wrong, I'll be happy to either adjust my argument or, if I'm outright wrong, eat my words. However, I have spent some quality time with title 17 (looking for loopholes), and I'm pretty confident that I'm on-target.
Nor am I an attorney; however, it is a matter which I've conferred on in the past. The protections are there in the most basic of Copyright Law, also enforced internationally.
- Mike
- -- Michael B. Trausch fd0man@gmail.com Web: http://fd0man.theunixplace.com/ Jabber: mtrausch@jabber.com Phone: +1-(678)-522-7934 FAX (US Only): 1-866-806-4647 ======================================================================= Do you have PGP or GPG? Key at pgp.mit.edu, Please Encrypt E-Mail!
-
mf -
Michael B. Trausch -
Quandary -
Steven Edwards