Must UNIX be a memory hog?

[Fuat C. Baran]

In article <31529 at bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs at bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>Actually, although humorous, I wonder about the legal implications of
>that /bin/true which contains nothing but a copyright notice (and
>perhaps one blank line.)
>
>One could make an argument that AT&T ran around blindly copyrighting
>everything in sight without being bothered to so much as inventory its
>copyright value or verify that there were any contents to which their
>copyrights could lay claim to or be properly assigned.

Are all UNIX files individually copyrighted, or is UNIX as a whole (or
by suitably large product chunks) protected by copyright?  Some of the
files (e.g the sources to /bin/true, /bin/false), etc. are obviously
trivial, and on there own would not merit a copyright notice, but as
part of UNIX as a whole they probably got the copyright notice, just
to make sure every file associated with the copyright was marked.

>I would be interested in any case law which dealt with frivolous use
>of the copyright law who's only purpose was to restrain trade rather
>than protect a creative work (eg. someone trying to copyright a blank
>book and lay claim to the concept of a blank book, as opposed to the
>design of a particular blank book.)

I don't think slapping a copyright notice (or registering a copyright)
on /bin/true (along with all the other sources to the kernel and
utilities) is frivolous use of the copyright law.  Attempting to sue
for copyright infringement based solely on someone else's sources to
/bin/true being similar to AT&T's WOULD be frivolous, and would
probably get thrown out of court.


						--Fuat

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