RE: [dvd-discuss] Copyright ranges

[Richard Hartman <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

Interesting question.  I think there is a functional/expressive difference
here.  The output of the compilers is generated from input created by a
person especially  to be converted by the compiler.  The output of a search
engine is the result of a mechanistic process -- nothing is really
_generated_ by this, it is _collected_ and presented.  I would say that the
results of Google searches would not be copyrightable.

Otoh, if the courts had been led down this line of reasoning it should also
follow that Google searches could not be held as _violating_ copyright, and
yet it has (requiring Google to remove certain URLs from the results of
certain searches).  

I would hope that this ruling was merely a result of a poor understanding of
the process and not how copyright law would function if properly informed.

-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Olsson [mailto:dvd-discuss@armware.dk]
> Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 2:05 PM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Copyright ranges
> 
> 
> Thanks to all for the explanations.
> 
> In <news:local.ml.dvd-discuss> on Mon 05 Aug, Wendy Seltzer wrote:
> > [...] If a second edition includes new material, the later 
> > publication date applies only to the new material, so a 
> notice might 
> > include both dates.
> 
> I guess a range is suitable for web pages and programs, that 
> get updated
> more often than other things.
> 
> Is it possible to claim copyright forever on server-generated pages?
> If it keeps changing every time you fetch it (even if it eventually
> happens to change to something it has served before), could you claim
> that every page is a new derived work that is protected?
> 
> The fact that an automated script is the "author" should not matter,
> since there seems to be copyright on the output from compilers.
> 
> Regards,
> Thomas
> 
> -- 
> 	9876543210  Magic tab-o-meter.		http://www.armware.dk/
>          ^
>      The opinions expressed herein may not reflect official 
> RIAA policy.
>