Re: copyright notice on contract

On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Bruce E. Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> 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.)

Not even reasons of public policy?

And anyway isn't a contract quite clearly denied the protection of copyright under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act?

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/
        NOTE: junger[_at_]pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists