Copyrighting trivial code

Unprivileged user nobody at sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU
Thu Jan 22 03:14:13 AEST 1987


In article <2567 at phri.UUCP> roy at phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>... I ran across
>"pagesize.c".  ... consists of ... a copyright notice ... and a main()
>routine which has a 1-line body.
>...[Does] the copyright notice mean anything?  Can one really copyright
>something which is so straightforward, trivial, and obvious?
>Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy

No.  If there is only a countable number of ways to state something, it is
not copyrightable.  Expressions such as "Baby on Board" are generally not
copyrightable.  For such expressions, it appears that the fuzzy line of
demarcation is around one sentence.

	Stan Tomlinson



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