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From: sns@genghis.UUCP (Sam Southard)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: spell bug?????
Message-ID: <182@genghis.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Aug-87 04:31:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: genghis.182
Posted: Tue Aug 11 04:31:38 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Aug-87 05:32:33 EDT
References: <541@augusta.UUCP> <6257@brl-smoke.ARPA> <944@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 25
Summary: in a dictionary??

In article <944@bsu-cs.UUCP>, dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> A good way of preserving a copyright on collections of items that
> individually cannot be copyrighted is to include a few red herrings
> that could not be there by chance.  Vendors of mailing lists thus
> include a few otherwise unknown addresses.  Similarly, I've heard that
> dictionaries include a few authentic-sounding nonsense words that were
> created by the publisher.  Theft of the collection can then be proven
> more easily.

I have no problem beliving this happens with mailing lists, but in a
dictionary?  I really doubt that a dictionary would have to resort to something
like this to preserve a copyright.  If a lot of the definitions are worded
exactly the same, then it would be pretty obvious.  It's not as if a dictionary
manufacturer can claim that someone stole the word from him.  If the new
dictionary has all the same words with different definitions how can it be a 
copyright violation?  If it has all the same definitions (or a very large
percentage of them) then it would be pretty obvious without needing to resort
to making up words.

Just think, the words "be" and "sit" were just made up by a publisher: they
don't really mean anything :).
-- 

Sam Southard, Jr.
{sns@genghis.caltech.edu|sns@genghis.uucp|{backbone}!cit-vax!genghis!sns}