Rudy Lippan scripsit: > There may not be intellectual property in the components; however, > there is work involved in their creation.
That doesn't matter to the law. It takes a lot of work to alphabetize a list of millions of names, but the result is not in copyright in the U.S.; it is in the public domain. > I give you free use of a copy machine, but state that as a condition > of use, you can't copy any of the books on shelf #3, even though a) I > don't own the books and b) they are in the public domain. You can do that because you own the copy machine. But if a book is in the public domain, that means that I don't own it and you don't own it and you don't own it (and so on for the billions of people and corporations and governments who can own things worldwide). -- Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God" John Cowan <co...@ccil.org> _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss