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The suing company claims that their approach and the links they
selected are copyrighted.
It's my understanding that something as abstract as an "approach" cannot be
copyrighted. Copyrights are meant to cover concrete expressions of an idea,
not the idea itself.
With a list of links, there may be a bit more justification for copyright.
To satisfy copyright, some creative effort must be put into the project.
Listing every possible link on a subject, therefore, is not copyrightable
because it required no such effort. However, the selection process *may*
satisfy this requirement, and thereby make the list copyrightable. It's an
interesting notion, but it should also be noted that in order for the claim
to be upheld, the infringing list must be *exactly* the same as the
original list. If the list accused of infringing doesn't inlude every site
from the original list, or includes more sites than the original list, the
claim gets weaker.
To further change it, would require changing commonly accepted
principles and terminology.
This, I think, is a point of safety. If the terms are in common use in the
industry, then they cannot be protected by copyright. Copyright is
especially lenient at the level of words and phrases; these items need to
be protected by trademarks or servicemarks rather than copyrights.
Copyright can bite you via exact matches and via "derivative works." If you
document the design process, it can help protect you from "derivative"
claims (after all, if the original site was not consulted, it becomes very
hard to claim you based your design on them).
As the web moves toward the mainstream, expect a lot more of this kind of
crap to happen. Non-creative types always think of a lawyer as a first
resort, rather than a last resort.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
