Regarding copyright ownership of DTD:
Copyright law protects expressions of ideas, not the underlying ideas
themselves. In many instances, a well-written DTD can only be expressed in
a particular manner, with allowances made for naming of elements,
attributes, etc. Therefore, any protection under copyright law would be
limited, because the scope of copyright protection is proportional to the
range of expression available to articulate the underlying ideas
communicated by the DTD. This is called the "merger doctrine" and is well
known in copyright law, especially with regard to the area of computers.
In much the same way as I cannot copyright the QuickSort algorithm, or the
recipe for ice cubes, acquiring a defensible copyright in most DTDs would
be well nigh impossible. If you took most any DTD where the circumstances
necessarily limit the ways in which such a DTD could be constructed,
changed the element names, and made a few other minor alterations, only an
exceedingly foolish DTD "author" would press a claim for copyright
infringement. In cases where the choices available to an author are
limited, the ideas underlying the work are deemed to "merge" with their
expression, thereby rendering the work unprotectible.
For those who are interested in reading more on the matter, I suggest
reading the court's opinion in Computer Assocs. Int'l v. Altai, Inc., 982
F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992). It deals with software, but many of the principles
enunicated in that case would bear directly on a case involving
infringement of a DTD.
Cheers.
==========================================================================
Scott D. Vanderbilt mailto:scott@lumdata.com
Luminous Dataworks
Phone: (310) 253-9918 Custom database solutions
Fax: (310) 842-7025 for the World Wide Web
==========================================================================
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Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii"
Regarding copyright ownership of DTD:
Copyright law protects expressions of ideas, not the underlying ideas
themselves. In many instances, a well-written DTD can only be expressed
in a particular manner, with allowances made for naming of elements,
attributes, etc. Therefore, any protection under copyright law would be
limited, because the scope of copyright protection is proportional to
the range of expression available to articulate the underlying ideas
communicated by the DTD. This is called the "merger doctrine" and is
well known in copyright law, especially with regard to the area of
computers.
In much the same way as I cannot copyright the QuickSort algorithm, or
the recipe for ice cubes, acquiring a defensible copyright in most DTDs
would be well nigh impossible. If you took most any DTD where the
circumstances necessarily limit the ways in which such a DTD could be
constructed, changed the element names, and made a few other minor
alterations, only an exceedingly foolish DTD "author" would press a
claim for copyright infringement. In cases where the choices available
to an author are limited, the ideas underlying the work are deemed to
"merge" with their expression, thereby rendering the work
unprotectible.
For those who are interested in reading more on the matter, I suggest
reading the court's opinion in Computer Assocs. Int'l v. Altai, Inc.,
982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992). It deals with software, but many of the
principles enunicated in that case would bear directly on a case
involving infringement of a DTD.
Cheers.
==========================================================================
Scott D. Vanderbilt mailto:scott@lumdata.com
Luminous Dataworks
Phone: (310) 253-9918 Custom database solutions
Fax: (310) 842-7025 for the World Wide Web
==========================================================================
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