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From: harryb@slovax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Surreptitious copyrighting, was Public Domain Yacc
Message-ID: <280@slovax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Feb-87 20:00:55 EST
Article-I.D.: slovax.280
Posted: Wed Feb 11 20:00:55 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 04:38:40 EST
References: <210@bacchus.MIT.EDU>
Distribution: world
Organization: R & D Associates., Tacoma, WA
Lines: 55

in article <210@bacchus.MIT.EDU>, rlk@athena.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz) says:
> 
> In article <3740@teddy.UUCP> jpn@teddy.UUCP (John P. Nelson) writes:
> ]Well, not by AT&T.  However, people should be aware that bison inserts
> ]a copy of the GNU copyright into every generated C file.  
> 
> Last time I looked at the bison sources, I couldn't find this
> "feature".  I checked the include and lib files as well.  Perhaps he's
> taken this out by now.
> 

Purely by accident, I found that utilizing the Microsoft C V3.0 and
their subroutine library results in a string, sometimes several
strings, in every .exe file marking the generated binary as "Copyright
by Microsoft Corp."  Doesn't this imply that Microsoft can, at some
point in time, claim they own your code?  

Let's say that you sell all binary rights to your code to someone else,
who perhaps sells it to someone else who markets it.  Hundreds of
thousands of copies (one can dream, can't one) eventually make their
way to an end user.  Since you have no interest in it, you're far
removed from it by this time, and besides, your initial sales contract
contains a boilerplate clause that the purchaser will indemnify you
against against any copyright infringement suits.  A swift run of the
code through the "Microsoft Copyright Detector Filter" and Microsoft
now has the at least the threat of a potential lawsuit for copyright
infringement to extract (that's a nicer word than 'extort') a
settlement from the successful marketer and vendor.

Consider how the facts would appear to a lay jury and a non-technical
judge, not how they might appear to a technical expert.  I believe to
them it might appear that the copyright applied to the resultant
binary, not just the object code library as a separate body of work,
portions of which were linked into your code.  In fact, contemplation
of the difficulty involved in trying to explain such distinctions to a
lay jury gives me a headache.

Of course, it wouldn't be practical for Microsoft to sue any but a deep
pocket, and of course we all know nobody in the software industry would
unethically claim another's work, but doesn't this practice seem to be
a time bomb for the unwary?  What do others think of this practice?
How do you (or would you) like inadvertantly stamping YOUR code with
THEIR copyright notice?
-- 
________________________________________________________________________

Harry E. Barnett      {hplsla,uw-beaver}!tikal!slovax!harryb

Brittanius (shocked):  Caesar, this is not proper.
Theodotus (outraged):  How?
Caesar (recovering his self possession):  Pardon him, Theodotus:  He is
a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and islands are
the laws of nature.

		--Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II, George Bernard Shaw