Re: Re: Protecting Ideas. This sentence is uncopyrightable (period).

Dr. Dailey(Sorry if I'm the only one who calls you by this title on this board but old habbits die hard)...
You wrote:
*[B] Let alpha refer to a copyrighted expression. May I publish an algorithm A and a string *beta, for which A applied to beta yields alpha? Would I be guilty of contributory infringement *or even primary infringment?

*We might be tempted to answer 'yes' since we might assume that I copied alpha in creating *beta. But, on the other hand, I may produce beta through mental arithmetic
Now forgive me if I am just reading this wrong but I have an argument against this. What you are refering to (even with the later part about the algorithm +1 mod 26.. sounds like a simple encryption scheme. It seems to me that this would still be a violation of copyright infringement. Otherwise it would be perfectly legal to take the latest Steven King novel, encrypt it and distribute it around the world for $0.25 a copy and make some money. I could be totally off base here.

Brian

On 1/31/07, David Dailey <david.dailey[_at_]sru.edu> wrote:
>
> At 06:43 PM 1/30/2007, Terry Carroll wrote:
> >On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> >
> >[haiku]: ["Preheat
> > > the oven. Be sure to grease the cake pans. Pour batter in pans."]
> Perhaps
> > > these 17 syllables are copyrightable in the context of *this* email
> simply
> > > because it is intended to be a haiku and not really a cake recipe?
> >
> >The difference is that a haiku is supposed to reference a season; a
> >recipe, a seasoning.
>
> This rather reminded me of something silly I posted here some years
> back. It seemed relatively apropos of the tone that Terry and
> Lawrence so generously established above:
> http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/copyright/uncopyrightable.htm
> (If you're new to the group, you may be interested; if you are an
> oldtimer, you probably know better by now.)
>
> cheers,
> David
>
>
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Received on Fri Feb 02 2007 - 22:05:00 GMT