Copyrighting trivial code

[mat at mtx5a.UUCP]

> 	While perusing /usr/src on my new 4.3BSD tapes, I ran across
> "pagesize.c".  This little gem consists of 15 or so lines of copyright
> notice and SCCS information, and a main() routine which has a 1-line body.
> The code contained in the body is (how do I say this without violating the
> copyright?) a call to a well-known standard I/O output routine with two
> arguments, the first of which specifies decimal conversion, the second of
> which is a system call to get the page size.
> 
> 	The obvious question is whether the copyright notice means
> anything.  Can one really copyright something which is so straightforward,
> trivial, and obvious?  If you gave the assignment "write a C program which
> prints the system page size in decimal to stdout" to 50 programmers, most
> of them would come up with substantially the same program, and many would
> probably be identical, character for character, to the 4.3 version.  If the
> copyright is valid, then any program I write which has that line of code,
> or a similar line of code, in it would be a derivitive work.  Clearly this
> is absurd.

Roy, I believe that you are confusing copyright with patent.  A patent
(``patent monopoly'') gives you the right to prevent someone else from
making something, whether he creates it independently or not.  A copyright
provides *no* such protection.  If you were to independently create a
copy of a copyrighted work (ie create it w/out knowledge of the original)
you would have every right to publish it and to control publication by those
who might see it.  Those who read the other fellow's invention of it would
be responsible to *him*.

Yes, a mess.  It works because of the infinitesmal likelyhood of a work
of any size being an exact copy of an independently created work, or even
a near copy.  In the example that you cite, it would probably be tough to
make a case on the basis of that routine.  On the other hand, protecting
the rights of the holders of the copyright is probably done under a set
of rules, proceedures, or conventions that calls for each routine to bear
a copyright notice.
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
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