On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:30:56 -0200, Gerhard Fiedler wrote: > Wouter van Ooijen wrote: > > >> Abstract ideas can't be copyrighted either (althought many are wrongly > >> patented). > > > > Sorry, you don't seem to understand copyright. It is about the text > > itself, not what the text means. If I describe something and have > > copyright on that text, you can describe the same thing *in your own > > words* and have a completly independent copyright on your text. > > Isn't that the exact same thing Marc wrote? Abstract ideas can't be > copyrighted, only a specific formulation of the ideas... > > So why would you say that this shows that he doesn't seem to understand > copyright?!? Well actually *no* ideas can be copyright, abstract or otherwise. It is the picture / words / sounds / ... themselves that have copyright, not the thing they represent. A nonsense poem, for example, is copyright, as is a drawing of a machine. But if the drawer has only drawn and not made the machine, the machine itself isn't covered - as long as you don't reproduce the drawing, but you build the machine represented in it, you have not broken the drawer's copyright. Of course, if the drawing was part of a patent application then you have probably broken the patent, but that is an entirely seperate issue. Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist