[TriLUG] copyright question

[Jaimie Livingston]

What you are describing is falls into the gray areas of derivative works,
intellectual property (the look and feel), and patents. 

As a former Designer, I would say that copying and modifying as described is
wrong. I would also say that copying the design - the intellectual property
of the designer - as described is also wrong. 

That said, there is a gray area where things get murky. How about if you
like the method a page designer is using for expanding menus, and then
proceed to figure out how they did it _without_ copying their code...  

I would recommend the following resources:

PierceLaw - http://www.piercelaw.edu/tfield/ipbasics.htm 
  Especially the section on "IP Basics for Artists, Inventors, Web Page
Designers..."

And if you're really into reading...
KuesterLaw Link - http://www.kuesterlaw.com/
US Patent Office FAQ - http://www.uspto.gov/main/faq/
US Copyright Office  - http://www.copyright.gov/

Jaimie

-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On Behalf
Of Mike M
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 6:34 PM
To: trilug at trilug.org
Subject: [TriLUG] copyright question


Is the look of a web page a copyrighted thing?  I believe the HTML and
CSS can be copyrighted, but there is more than one way to create a
similar appearance to a web page.

Let's say that you admire a web page design.  You copy the page source 
and modify the source by changing grahic images and colors.  You change
all trademark references. You also change all the content. All that
remains are page layout and css objects.  Let's say you've even
changed all the object names in the css. How much changing is
necessary to make the new work separate and apart from the original?

What if from scratch you recreate the general layout and color scheme of a
webpage
that is copyrighted.  Is this a violation of copyright?

-- 
Mike

Moving forward in pushing back the envelope of the corporate paradigm.
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