Re: copyright notice on contract

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
>
> 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.

I see no reason though why such contracts should not be protected by copyright, to the extent that they contain original expression. (Obviously, there would have to be some sort of filtering to eliminate nonoriginal stuff, stuff that could only be expressed in a limited number of ways, etc.)

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Original portions Copyright 1999 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
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Bruce E. Hayden                      bhayden[_at_]acm.org
Phoenix, Arizona                     bhayden[_at_]ieee.org
                                     bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com