Thomas said:
Richard said:
Thomas said:
Robert wrote:
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn [...] wrote [...] ...
* Copyright (C) 2004 Thomas Lahn <
[email protected]>
Nice function, but you copyrighted it, so we cannot use it.
Is that so? That line was simply intended to declare my
authorship. <snip>
It seems to me that an original work (including computer code) would
remain the intellectual property of its creator regardless of being
published in a public forum.
Sure. But what does this mean in this case?
It means that an explicit assertion of copyright/authorship doesn't
really modify the right (or lack or right) of third parties to use that
code without permission from its creator. That there is no difference
between code posted with an explicit copyright statement and code posted
without one because intellectual property rights follow from the
creation of an original work implicitly.
In practice there is very little in browser scripting that is new and
unique. Your function is reminiscent of code associated with the FAQ;
differently structured, particularly in its feature detecting, but
essentially the same process. In principle I own the rights to that
(specific) code from the FAQ[1], but if someone wrote more code that did
essentially the same thing again, it would probably not be possible to
determine whether it was based on either of ours, stolen verbatim form a
third party, or created out of the imagination of its author without
direct external influence.
Richard.
[1] Or do I? I wrote that code:-
<URL:
http://jibbering.com/faq//faq_notes/form_access.html#faBut >
- but I cannot tell to what extent it is original. The problem is so
limited, and the applicable logic so obvious, that any programmer in a
similar situation would write similar code.
The next block of code on that page is based on an Idea that I first
encountered in posts by Grant Wagner and so could not be clamed to be
original (except in the implementation details, and probably not even
then). I recall thinking at the time that it was obviously a good idea
under those circumstances, but such an obvious good idea that if I had
encountered that actual situation prior to that point it might have
occurred to me as applicable anyway.
While the block that follows it certainly is my invention (I recall
thinking through the logic of the tests) but it probably isn't actually
unique or original either.