🚀 go-pugleaf

n-reply-to: tzs@u.washington.edu's message of 11 Oct 1994 22:16:14 GMT
Xref: courier.urbana.mcd.mot.com comp.lang.misc:13802 gnu.misc.discuss:17317

In article <37f2re$69b@nntp1.u.washington.edu> tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:

| Can you name any of these IP lawyers?  I've not seen any of them post to the
| net, nor do they seem to be the ones who write copyright treatises (Goldstein
| or Nimmer).  I've not found any cases that indicate my interpretation of the
| law is incorrect.  And I spent two hours today going over your post with
| my copyright profressor, and he couldn't see any legal basis for what you
| say about things not actually containing X to be distributions of X, and
| pointed me toward some cases that indicate the opposite.
---

Umm, how about Hubco Data Products v. Management Assistance, Inc.?
Hubco was not distributing any of MAI's code, just a patch, which was
ruled to be a derivative work.

The language of the Act includes: "A work consisting of editorial
revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a
whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work."
I think a work which subsumes another work by reference (i.e.,
install-time inclusion) fits well within the scope of that sentence.

On the other hand, the CONTU report specifically argued for a right to
add features not available at the time of purchase, which would imply
that add-ons should be legal under the "adaptations necessary to
facilitate use of the program" exception.

So, I don't think the answer is a slam dunk at all - I think the law can
be read to allow or to exclude and that it would be risky to depend on
the interpretation going either way.

Could you cite the cases your professor suggested?

scott
[NOTE - I am not a lawyer and I don't like the inclusive interpretation
of "derivative work", for all that I think it is defensible.

--
--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
internet mail:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com