Copyrighting trivial code

[Daniel M. Frank]

In article <6564 at alice.uUCp> ark at alice.UUCP writes:
>As far as I know, copyright only protects copying.  In order to copy
>something, you have to see the original and transcribe it in some
>way (including changing it). [...]
>
>So suppose I come up with something that looks just like this little
>program and Berkeley accuses me of copyright infringement?  Essentially,
>they have to convince a jury that I saw this program and used it to
>base my own version on.  

   Recently, several large software companies, most notably Apple Computer
and Lotus Development, have initiated copyright infringement suits based
on the "look and feel" of their products.  Apple intimidated Digital
Research into changing its Gem product, which it felt resembled the
Macintosh interface too much.  They also forced Microsoft to enter into
an agreement to protect Windows from similar treatment.  All this in
spite of the fact that Apple cloned the Mac interface almost whole cloth
from earlier Xerox products.

   Lotus has suits outstanding against two makers of 1-2-3 workalikes.
These suits do not contend that the authors of these products ever saw
a line of Lotus code; they are an attempt to extend copyright protection
to the user interface of a product.

   Presumably, even if Lotus wins these suits, no judge would ever rule
for the owner of /bin/true in cases like this.  Nonetheless, if "look
and feel" becomes a part of copyright precedent, the effects could be
chilling, to say the least.

   I think this sort of action is really sleazy, by the way.  If Lotus
had developed some new products that someone wanted, and had Apple not
had the arrogance to build a machine without expansion slots (a problem
now being rectified, happily), they could have been out there making
money instead of protecting dinosaur products they didn't "invent" in
the first place.  What if VisiCorp had sued Lotus on those grounds?
What if Xerox had gone after Apple?  They forget quick, don't they?

-- 
    Dan Frank
    uucp: ... uwvax!prairie!dan
    arpa: dan%caseus at spool.wisc.edu