Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict
From: erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Apple Lawsuit
Summary: Copyrights are not the problem.
	It's what Apple was *allowed* to copyright
Message-ID: <640@flatline.UUCP>
Date: 14 May 88 20:42:19 GMT
References: <3bb68a91.ddc1@apollo.uucp> <486@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Organization: den of sinister exaggerators -- houston.montrose
Lines: 37

In article <486@goofy.megatest.UUCP>, djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes:
> I used to believe there was a moral justification for patents and 
> copyrights: to protect the intellectual property of the people who 
> invent things which we would otherwise not have.

There is.

The problem is, Apple was allowed to concept something that shouldn't
be allowed a copyright:  a *class* or *style*.  Bear with me..

If I wrote a game using aliens flying from the top of the screen to the
bottom, and you must shoot at them from the bottom, and tried to copyright
that part of the game, I would be laughed at.  I could, however, copyright
my code, and possibly the designs I used (if they weren't in the public
domain).

Apple has copyrighted -- unfortunately, with little or no oppostion -- 
something larger.  The idea of a "trash can" for an icon associated with
"delete this stuff" being copyrighted is ludicrous.  The fact they copyrighted
this in the first place is silly.  If they wanted to copyright the way
the trashcan looked, or their style of trashcan, that would be a different
matter.

Copyrights aren't allowed for say, "command line prompts".  Anyone
trying to copyright the use of "a character of symbol to designate that
the system is ready to accept a new command" would be laughed at publicly
(at least I hope they would be :-).

Again, copyrights are a very *good* thing, but like most things, they can
be misused.  Same with patents.  Imagine if Henry Ford got the patent
for "any vehicle using two or more tires to suspend a chassis from the ground,
and having an engine to propell it". :-)  I feel that this is what
Apple was allowed with it's copyrights on all the goofy stuff...
-- 
                                Know Future
Another journalist with too many spare MIPS.
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007