Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:14658 comp.sys.mac:15211 comp.sys.apple:5573
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!killer!chasm
From: chasm@killer.UUCP (Charles Marslett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Copyrighting Icons
Message-ID: <3889@killer.UUCP>
Date: 20 Apr 88 12:34:12 GMT
References: <24@imspw6.UUCP> <1522@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <1707@pixar.UUCP> <558@cunixc.columbia.edu>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 40
Summary: Aw shut up!

In article <558@cunixc.columbia.edu>, lih@cunixc.columbia.edu (Andrew Lih) writes:
> >In article <1522@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
> >>A lot of people think that small icons should be copyrightable. If your icons
> >>are, say, 16 * 16, then there are 65,000 possible icons. Anyone can simply
> >>copyright all combinations, and then prevent anyone else from using
> >>*any* 16*16 icons. This is obviously ludicrous.

The 16x16 size is unimportant, except for the fact that it may be an expression
of a reasonable matrix for symbols of icon size.

> 
> I hate to be picky, but aren't there many more icons than this?
> 
> a 16 x 16 matrix has 256 pixels, then with each dot having an on or off
> state, would make this 2^256...which is a horridly large number.
> 
> If we add color or gray scales to the icon, then we can obviously
> forget even trying to draw all the possible icons..
> 
>  """""""	Andrew "Fuz" Lih		lih@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu
>  | @ @ |	Computer Consultant		UI.LIH@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU

Actually this is getting pretty far afield -- if Apple has their way, the
"look-and-feel" issue will allow you to copyright an icon and all those that
approximate it too closely are still considered copies -- perhaps as many
as 1% of all icons will be similar enough so only 200 or 300 icon might
fill the "icon space".  And it is relatively independent of icon matrix size.
So long as icons are "small", there cannot (from a human factors, user-friendly,
or whatever perspective) be more than a few hundred distinguishable icons.
In spirit, the original poster was right -- even if he blew it on the
arithmetic (like my spelling?).

Charles Marslett
chasm@killer.UUCP
...!ihnp4!killer!chasm

P.S.  Does color matter in this discussion?  It might expand the icon space
      a bit more, making the discussion more viable.  Gray scale probably
      doesn't, but color might (is a colorized movie a new product or is it
      a derived translation?).