On Fri, Apr 09, 2004 at 10:58:39PM -0400, John Franklin wrote: > On Apr 9, 2004, at 2:38 PM, Mike M wrote: > > >On Fri, Apr 09, 2004 at 01:45:06PM -0400, Phillip Rhodes wrote: > >Can I use my education? I > >believe that I can because everything I saw was documented in my HTML > >book and I was not looking at any patented business process crap. I > >deleted some classes and added others. I changed all the class names > >and created all new graphic files. All text content was replaced. What > >I ended up with is a variation on the original look-and-feel. > > First off, IANAL.
Me neither. But this guy is: http://www.ivanhoffman.com/feel.html There are 3 elements that must be demonstrated: 1. Site 2 (the alleged infringer site) has copied from Site 1 (the site allegedly copied from); 2. What Site 2 copied from Site 1 are elements of Site 1 that the copyright law recognizes as protectable elements; and 3. That Site 1 either has provable damages or has registered its site, including making the required deposit of all the protectable elements, with the copyright office within the time required by the statute. Then there is this about copying: But, having said that the copyright law protects against copying, the second element that must be proven is that what was copied is actually protectable under that law. While the threshold for originality is low under the copyright law, there are some elements that are simply not protectable under the law. Short phrases, mere ideas as opposed to the expression of ideas and functionality are among the elements not protectable. But the look and feel, the web site interface as it were, can contain elements that are protectable if they are sufficiently original and are not public domain or taken from other sources or serve as so-called "methods of operation" i.e. functionality. Much of the programming that creates how the site looks can be protected as of course can be original graphics and designs. It appears that the changes I descibed above reduces (as intended) the act of copying to public domain "methods of operation" which are not protectable under the law. This squarely addresses my concern. What I propose is copying. (This is what my sense of ethics was telling me.) The law does not offer copyright protection to the elements that I propose copying - the public domain functional elements. If the functional elements are changed sufficiently it becomes difficult to conclude that they were copied. This withstands my ethical tests as well since I was unable to distinguish between the acts of reading-recreating and copying-changing. Both acts required learning a public domain technique. I was able to find other references to the spreadsheet wars of earlier times. Phil also mentioned the GUI wars. We all see various spreadsheets and GUIs, so intuitively we can conclude that "look and feel" cannot be protected too well. > > Ok, assuming such a thing went to court, it would be a civil suit, not > a criminal one. The rules are different from the start, and it would > be a matter of the jury deciding based on arguments made by both sides > if copyright was violated. What it would more than likely come down to > is: > > 1) How much of the site did you use? The entire thing, or just a > couple elements? > > 2) Is some particular aspect of the violated code unique to their site? > E.g., do the menus have a particular and unique property to them such > as fading in/out, animated action (rolling out ? la Aqua), non-standard > shapes, etc. that is not seen on the web in general? > > and probably most importantly for the purposes of damages: > > 3) Would web users be confused by your use of their style and mistake > your site for theirs. Judging from the google search I did, most concern was about out-and-out identical look-and-feel copying (which I thoroughly condemn). I want to be able to read HTML and CSS (public domain functional methods) on the web and use what I learn without fear of legal reprisal. This means that I should be able to read-recreate and copy-change functional elements. As a matter of ethics, I believe that all written copy, graphics, and progamming names must be changed to avoid confusion with the original. It's as if I were a painter and admired Warhol (choosen because his copyrights are still active and enforced) I might be influenced by his Turquoise Marilyn: http://www.artquotes.net/masters/warhol_andy/turquoise-marilyn-62-b.jpg and make a similar painting using the same technique with a different photo of Marilyn: http://www.marilynmonroe.com/images/gallery/monm011a.gif The influence would be obvious and the method of production would be similar, but no copyright infringment against Warhol would occur. (Disclaimer - I will not defend any analogy, this one included. THey are weak arguements). > > jf > -- > John Franklin > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ICBM: 38? 56' 32.6"N 77? 24' 47.7"W Z+62m > -- > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug > TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ > TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc -- Mike Moving forward in pushing back the envelope of the corporate paradigm. -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
