*BSD News Article 3549


Return to BSD News archive

Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:3593 misc.int-property:384 misc.legal.computing:1484
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,misc.int-property,misc.legal.computing
Subject: Re: Poisoned textbooks and net articles?
Message-ID: <7172@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:15:55 GMT
References: <1992Aug10.225150.29474@unislc.uucp> <7154@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Aug12.041630@eklektix.com>
Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk
Followup-To: misc.int-property
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 43

In article <1992Aug12.041630@eklektix.com> rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>>              Of course, there are some folks out there
>>>that contend that if you release a piece of software to the net, you in
>>>effect place it in the public domain, but I don't believe a judge would buy
>>>that argument.
>...
>>Well, just when _are_ we allowed to use information we read in books
>>or on the net?  And what's the point of reading these things if the
>>answer is "never"?  How much does copyright restrict us?...
>>any point in reading books, for instance?)
>
>This digresses a bit from BSD to "intellectual property" stuff, but it's
>worth knowing, given (as others have pointed out) the large amount of
>published material on BSD systems.
>
>Copyright protects the form of expression.  It explicitly does *not*
>protect ideas or information.  (Patents protect ideas; that's not at issue
>here.)  So, for example, the copyright on a textbook protects the par-
>ticular presentation of ideas, concepts, and facts.  You can use the ideas
>and the information in a textbook; you can't (for example) copy the way
>they're explained.

OK, (1) suppose someone posts some code to the net w/o a copyright
notice.  Can I use it, or is there an implicit copyright that says
"no"?  If the latter, then I may be better off if I don't read
net articles that contain code.

(2) Suppose I find out about an algorithm by reading a textbook.
How much does my implementation have to differ from the one in
the book?  Should I stay away from textbooks that give code and
look for ones that give only informal or mathematical descriptions?

Now, from "form of expression" it sounds like translation to a
different programming language might suffice, but I doubt it really
does.

In short, does the common practice of finding out how to do something
by reading books, papers, and net articles violate copyrights?

-- jeff

PS I've directed followups to misc.int-property.  Is that ok?