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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Your software rights are in danger
Message-ID: <978@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 15:11:32 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.978
Posted: Sun Dec 22 15:11:32 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 00:56:16 EST
References: <856@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1478@jhunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 31
Keywords: copyright law
Summary: Why Ashton-Tate claims dBASE not "published"

In article <1478@jhunix.UUCP> ins_aeas@jhunix.UUCP (Earle A .Sugar) writes:
>    One final question: Ashton-Tate's license agreement states that the 
>DBASE III package is a "non-published, copyrighted work".  Aren't these 
>two terms contradictory under U.S. copyright law?  If not, how can something 
>that has scores of thousands of (legal) copies in the field be considered 
>"unpublished"?

(1) Used to be a work had to be published to secure copyright in the US;
that changed with the new copyright act that took effect in 1978.

(2) This business of dBASE being a "non-published, copyrighted work" is
an example of a lawyer playing CYA[1].  A non-published work can be
protected as a trade secret.  (One of the reasons for prohibiting
"reverse engineering" in licence agreements is to give credence to the
trade secret argument.)  The idea is that even if Ashton-Tate can't get
you for copyright violation (if you can somehow squirm out on a
technicality), they have trade secret violation as a fallback position.
The law is still a little vague, but there seems to be no reason a work
can't be protected by both copyright and trade secret.

(3) I think the claim that dBASE is non-published is a ludicrous
corruption of the meaning of the word, but you can't blame them for
trying.

(4) Again, I'm not a lawyer; my interest in copyright law is purely
amateur.  See a real lawyer if you need legal advice.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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