Re: Copyrighting Gibberish

Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote:
>
> Is it possible to exclude gibberish from copyright protection? Does
> the material have to make sense?
>
> For example,
>
> 1) A 100-page list of prime numbers (not a computer program, just a
> list of numbers)
>
> 2) A 300-page random string of words in no particular order taken
> from the dictionary or newspaper
>
> Would these qualify as copyrightable materials?

IANAL, but the current law cites "works of original authorship". Prime numbers would not, IMO, apply.

The second case actually came up, there was a codebook of essentially random numeric or alphabetic sequences published in the 1930s or 1940s, to be used for composing and decrypting coded messages. IIRC, a second book came out, a copy of the first. I don't remember the court's decision, or the name of the case, but you should find it in a review of the case literature.

-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com)

    What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
    Welchen Teil von "gestalt" verstehen Sie nicht?

web:       http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
SAS/Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html    

 11:01pm  up 77 days, 20:30,  3 users,  load average: 1.17, 1.21, 1.25