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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 01 2012 @ 07:59 PM EDT |
On the full disclosure and stringent testing the software patent fall down.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, September 01 2012 @ 08:41 PM EDT |
Thanks for the link to the 17 USC ยง 102 statute. In part A of that statute (I
think that is what it is), it states specifically that it also applies to
literary works.
Continuing the example of the Harry Potter series, I know of several examples
where authors have sued or been sued due to perceived similarities with the
Potter series. Most of these lawsuits appear to have been dismissed based on the
finding that (to paraphrase) "no reasonable person could conclude that the
origins of the works were the same." In other words, the stories were
sufficiently different that it was clear that the two authors had come up with
similar ideas independently. This would seem to imply that if a author DID
substantially copy the IDEAS behind Harry Potter books that they could in fact
be sued--even if the book was not a word-for-word copy of the original in any
regard.
I believe, but am not certain, that software copyright is treated differently
and that the literal code and not the idea of the program is protected. This
would seem to be a major difference between how copyright is handled in
literature compared to software. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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