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From: nobody@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Unprivileged user)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Copyrighting trivial code
Message-ID: <2490@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Wed, 21-Jan-87 12:14:13 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2490
Posted: Wed Jan 21 12:14:13 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Jan-87 00:20:24 EST
References: <2567@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: stan@beowulf.UUCP (Stan Tomlinson)
Organization: EE/CS Dept. U.C. San Diego
Lines: 15
Xref: mnetor misc.legal:671 comp.unix.wizards:667

In article <2567@phri.UUCP> roy@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