[TriLUG] copyright question

[John Franklin]

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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