Re: copyright notice on contract

On 08/25/1999, Robert C. Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 24, 1999, Dana Bostrom <bostrom[_at_]u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I received a contract to review that had a copyright notice. None of
> > my colleagues had ever seen this before. Any ideas on why it would be
> > included?
>
> Companies that use a lot of contracts, and have over time developed
> boilerplate contracts that they rely on, are increasingly coming to
> regard those "form" agreements as proprietary to them and protectable
> as original works. To the best of my knowledge, their protectability
> has not yet been tested in a court of law. Some years ago certain
> insurance companies began putting copyright notices on their policies,
> as well; and their protectability HAS been affirmed in court.

It seems sort of asinine to be able to copyright a contract. I mean, which of us has ever written an original agreement in their life. We all steal the language from someplace else. Hell I got a stacks and stack of contracts lying around cause I like clauses in them. I just pop them into an agreement whenever I need one of them.

Hey, maybe a copyright in a contract as a compliation of separate clauses? Hmm Something to think about

Rob Jones
<rjones[_at_]robjob.com> Received on Thu Aug 26 1999 - 13:24:15 GMT