🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3jn9q2$ai0@news.onramp.net> hcm@onramp.net "Hank Mishkoff" writes:

> nemo@ctr.columbia.edu (Nemo Semret) writes:
> >I was wondering, who owns the copyright for WWW homepages? Is it the
> >institution which owns the machines (in my case the university) or the
> >author of the content?
<snip>
> 
> At what point are you in violation of copyright law? Obviously, not when 
> you *look* at the page, even though to do so you have to make a copy; if 
> that were a violation of law, the Web wouldn't be usable at all. (I think 
> you could make a good case that everyone who puts a page on the Web must 
> intend for that initial client-server copy to be made.) What if you like 
> what you've seen, so you show it other people? What if you make some 
> changes to improve on it? What if you make some changes and then claim it 
> as your own work?
> 
> It seems to me that only my last example is a clear violation of the 
> spirit of copyright laws. But there are many intermediate steps in 
> reaching that point (the first of which is essential to the operation of 
> the system); at what point have you broken the law?
> 
There is a further complication. I have seen several postings of the type
'How do I do such-and-such'. The answer always seems to be: 'Find a page
that does it; grab it in the form that shows the HTNL coding [the 
instructions are usually more explicit than this :-)] and do likewise'

OK. I think we can agree that the creator of the page (or his employer) has
the copyright of the displayed text. Likewise for the combination of text and
HTML coding.

BUT what about the sequence of HTML instructions without the text. It could
be argued that HTM: is a programming language (any lawyer worth his salt 
could make out a case standing on his head, blindfolded, and with both 
hands tied behind his back). Does this mean that a given sequence of HTML 
instructions can be _patented_. An what about 'look and feel'.

This is a whole can of worms that is likely (at first at least) to be of
concern on your side of the Atlantic, Americans taking an unholy delight 
in litigation. However, any court decisions may havw repercussions elsewhere.

Would any lawyers reading this care to comment (for free, I am not asking
for a consultation :-)  ) [My sig seems suddenly very appropriate.]

-- 
Philip Johnson
          Never do for yourself what you can con an expert into doing for you.
                                     Naismith: "On War".