Re: copyright

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Re: copyright

you *can* copyright ideas, but it has to be fairly specific.  part of the
wright brothers copyrights regarded *how* to put the plane in flight,
there was very little componet wise they did that was new, it was the
combination that was so important.

the reason Apple couldn't copywright the *idea* of a gui is because it
existed before they came along.  maybe in an alternate universe apple, or
even xerox would be an even bigger monster than microsoft and intel
combined - for good or bad.

aside from that, I think TI would not mind as long as there was no profit
involved, they may even appreciate it if distribution leads to more TI
calc users (and less HP, etc).

It's probably worth just asking TI, though.

Jesse.Samuels@asu.edu



On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, Reinier Zwitserloot wrote:

> You cannot copyright ideas.
>
> You can copyright code, and trademark names.
>
> Trademarks only have any legal right whatsoever if the use of the
> trademarked name in question by another company is hurting the
> commerciality of the trademarked product.
>
> ie:
>
> If I make a big carton box, and put some really cheap parts in it, and call
> it an Apple Macintosh, and I sell it, people will think apple macs are
> really bad computers.
>
> If I sell an apple on the street, the nature thingie, not the computer,
> apple, the company doesn't have any legal rights.
>
> Furthermore, you can never copyright/trademark ideas. The idea of some
> little blocks falling down and you have to move them so that they form
> lines, which then go away, is an idea, and anybody can write source for
> that. porting or disassembling the original tetris source is infringement
> of copyright though.
> I doubt you are walking over trademark too much by calling things Z-tetris.
> Especially since 'tetris' tends to be the name associated with the idea.
> just like sidways shoot-em-up is the common name for all those many, many
> games out there. tetris happends to be the actual name of the product,
> which does give the company holding the trademark (elorg) some rights. I
> really sincerely doubt they will complain about completely non-commercial
> use of the name, as is the case  with ti85.
>
> --
> -R.Zwitserloot@BTInternet.com
>
> Nick Zitzmann <nickzman@ESKIMO.COM> wrote in article
> <AFEDC286-966D7@204.122.16.186>...
> > On Sat, Jul 12, 1997 4:47 AM, Nadler <mailto:sn11162@CEDARNET.ORG> wrote:
> > > Can you make a game for a calc using a copyrighted name like Tetris? I
> > > am assuming that Tetris was copyrighted. When a calculator game says
> > > that it is copyrighted is it really copyrighted or did the author just
> > > write it on there?
> >
> > Yes and no. Tetris (as a name and an idea) is trademarked and Copyright
> > 1987, Elorg. (which is an abbreviation for Tetris's original publisher,
> > whose name is untypably long.) I believe commercial releases of Tetris
> must
> > come from a group which has officially licensed the game. They're
> probably
> > not going to hunt down people who make not-so-widely (read:
> > non-commercially) distributed versions of their game, though.
> >
> > Besides that, I don't believe any of these Tetris game authors have put
> > their name down as the copyright name for "Tetris", just their own code
> > rendition of the game. That's understandable.
> >
> > Nick Zitzmann                             No WWW page at this time.
> > (Resident Macintosh Tweaker)
> >                                           Windows 95:
> >                                           From the people who brought you
> >                                             EDLIN!
> >
>
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