Copyrights and Secrets

[John Cowan]

Mahesh T Pai scripsit:

> You do not violate copyright by reading an
> unpublished book.  But, if
> You break open into the author's table to
> access the unpublished book,
> the matter is diffierent.

No.  It is probably criminal, but reading
a book (not out loud) can never violate the
author's copyright.

>    As qn. 3 implies, computer software
> involves more than one set of
> information, (as compared to print and
> audio media, which deal with only
> one set of info).  The program binaries
> and the source code are
> independently copyrightable.

That's true, but since a binary is a derivative
work, you cannot create one without a license
from the author of the source code.

> In the traditional sense however,
> "copyright" is a right in just one
> concept - the information contained in
> some published work.

The information as such is not copyright,
only the form in which the information is
expressed.

-- 
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan at ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_
--
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