Re: copyright
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Re: copyright
No.. no.. no... You can PATENT ideas. You can "copyright" products.The
wright brothers _patented_ their idea, and _copyrighted_ their planes.
Apple has _patented_ "their" idea of the GUI, not the general idea of a
GUI, but the Macintosh _idea_... As a matter of fact, they have been in
court many a time for _patent_ infringment from Xerox.
Hmmm... Oh, yes that makes sense... TI would be _pleased_ for you to
distribute the source code of their calculator for free. Oh, yes, that makes
bunches of sense. I am sure they would be about as pleased as if Microsoft
saw that you had posted the 11 million lines of Windows95 code (eww, thats a
lot of spagetti code <G>)...
TI doesn't make very much money off of you downloading a free ROM, so I am
thinking that might not help finish much. Sounds more like it would hurt
business more.
About asking TI, I would suggest you not wasting their time. Think about it
logically, and you will realize their answer yourself. They are very tired
at yelling at people who can't understand why you shouldn't distribute their
calc's source code around the net.
BowmanSoft Software
http://www.bowmansoft.com/
Web Hosting and Design Services
-----Original Message-----
From: Jesse Samuels <JESSE.SAMUELS@ASU.EDU>
To: CALC-TI@LISTS.PPP.TI.COM <CALC-TI@LISTS.PPP.TI.COM>
Date: Tuesday, July 22, 1997 8:12 PM
Subject: 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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