Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!labrea!agate!garnet!weemba From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Matthew P Wiener) Newsgroups: gnu.emacs Subject: Re: Apple boycott, etc. Message-ID: <14751@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 27 Sep 88 08:15:14 GMT References: <8809262106.AA09340@serendip.kla.com> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Matthew P Wiener) Distribution: gnu Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central Lines: 24 In-reply-to: cohesive!kla!serendip!pml@SUN.COM (PM Lashley) Is it time for a gnu.policy or gnu.copyleft list??? In article <8809262106.AA09340@serendip.kla.com>, cohesive!kla!serendip!pml@SUN (PM Lashley) writes: > `An icon depicting >a file folder' for example, would be MUCH too vague. In fact, I suspect that >any natural language definition of an icon or screen layout would be too >vague. Specific bitmaps should be copyrightable with some degree of variance >allowed. Formal language (i.e. PostScript) definitions should be allowed. Note that copyright law does not protect against independent recreation. That is, if out of thin air I wrote a word-for-word copy of some Stephen King novel--and I could convince a judge and jury that I have never seen or heard nigh of Stephen King all these years--then my version would be an independent work of art, and separately copyrightable! So I don't think it would be *possible* to effectively copyright some- thing as basic as an icon depicting a file folder. Hire a starving art major who has never used a Mac before, and get them to churn out icons. And to minimize any Apple derived connection that might be used against you in a later court case, boycott all Apple products starting now. These considerations don't apply to trademarks or patents. ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720