Where's the (c) on UNIX?

[lcc.csk at UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA]

From:            Charley Kline <lcc.csk at UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>

Having recently asked my computer lawyers the same questions,
changing all the nouns in a program or all the for loops
to while loops would still be an infringement of copyright.

If you write a book and copyright it and I reset it in type so
that it is formatted differently, it is an infringement.
If I write a book and take a section from your book, that is
an infringement.

However, if you use the phrase "I went to the store" and I
also happen to use that phrase, that is not an
infringement since this phrase is too general to copyright.

Thus, determining when your work infringes upon another's is
up to the courts to decide on a case by case basis.  Obviously
they take into account such things as whether the way you wrote
code is the only way to do the particular function and things like that.

By the way, unlike patent law, in which you own the invention,
copyright law does not protect independent recreation of the
same work.  (If you went off into the desert and wrote
War and Peace all by yourself, this would not be
a copyright infringement, but, obviously, no one would believe
you did that and you would almost certainly lose in court.)