Re: MIDRANGE-L Digest V3 #323

[Jim Langston <jlangston@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Al,

I would agree with you on most aspects, but not all.  Specifically,
learning from other's codes and using the same style, I do not consider
a violation of the copyright laws.

Consider any literary book on the market that has dwarfs, elves, hobbits
and such.  Are they in violation of J. R. Tolkien's Copyright on The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings?  These arthurs are not copying the story itself,
but are using the story to write their own novels.  You could argue that this
would become a derivitave work, but that just is not the case.

So, I work for a company and learn their code, then go to another company
and code my own program in the same style.  Is that a derivitave work?  By
the same token, it's not.  Now, taking someone else program and then modifying
it, that is a derivative work, and I am held by the original author's copywrite.

There may be aspects of the program that are patented, however, that I may not
use even when writing from scratch, because of patent laws (although I think 
that
one case going to court dealing with windowing is totally ludacrous).

So, reading a program from a magazine, and thinking that was a neat technique
I just learned, then going to the keyboard and writing a program based on that
technique would not be a violation of copyright laws.  Copying the program from
the magazine and punching it into the computer would be, however.

A fine line?  Perhaps.  But the line is there.  Gary Gygax wrote D&D (Dungeons
and Dragons).  Other companies came out and created similar types of games 
(Gurps,
Villians and Vigilanties, Champions, etc...) yet, they were not in violation of 
copywrite law.
They learned from the copywritten work, and used the knowledge to make their own
unique games, which, admittedly, they probably would of not been able to do if 
Gary
hadn't shown the way.

Regards,

Jim Langston

Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 16:19:26 EDT
From: MacWheel99@aol.com
Subject: Re: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?

<SNIP>
So we see techniques used in the packaged software that we modify, and
techniques used by former employees, and we do not know what is standard to
an industry, that is legitimate for us to use anywhere, and what is really
confidential to this package.
<SNIP>

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