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Subject:Re: ANON: Re: Plagiarism From:Laurie Morgan <lmorgan -at- BROADBANDNETWORKS -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 6 Jan 1999 10:41:55 -0600
Further to this... I heard a talk by a copyright lawyer in which he explained
why a custom-created catalogue of parts could be copyrighted for this very
reason. Now, there was no reason why someone else couldn't put in the legwork
and create another catalogue from the same raw materials, but if this company
could prove that someone else's catalogue was copied directly from their
catalogue, they could take them to court for infringement of copyright.
The way they protected themselves was that the catalogue contained some part
numbers for non-existant products. If these numbers showed up in someone else's
catalogue, the company could prove they were copied - because they didn't
exist.
Laurie
Walker, Arlen P wrote:
> <include standard not-a-lawyer disclaimer here>
>
> 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.
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