[TriLUG] copyright question
John Franklin
franklin at elfie.org
Fri Apr 9 22:58:39 EDT 2004
On Apr 9, 2004, at 2:38 PM, Mike M wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 09, 2004 at 01:45:06PM -0400, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
> Can I use my education? I
> believe that I can because everything I saw was documented in my HTML
> book and I was not looking at any patented business process crap. I
> deleted some classes and added others. I changed all the class names
> and created all new graphic files. All text content was replaced. What
> I ended up with is a variation on the original look-and-feel.
First off, IANAL.
Ok, assuming such a thing went to court, it would be a civil suit, not
a criminal one. The rules are different from the start, and it would
be a matter of the jury deciding based on arguments made by both sides
if copyright was violated. What it would more than likely come down to
is:
1) How much of the site did you use? The entire thing, or just a
couple elements?
2) Is some particular aspect of the violated code unique to their site?
E.g., do the menus have a particular and unique property to them such
as fading in/out, animated action (rolling out à la Aqua), non-standard
shapes, etc. that is not seen on the web in general?
and probably most importantly for the purposes of damages:
3) Would web users be confused by your use of their style and mistake
your site for theirs.
jf
--
John Franklin
franklin at elfie.org
ICBM: 38º 56' 32.6"N 77º 24' 47.7"W Z+62m
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