Date:         Fri, 4 Nov 2005 15:27:56 -0500
Reply-To:     Sigurd Hermansen <HERMANS1@WESTAT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Sigurd Hermansen <HERMANS1@WESTAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: Another OT: Copyright concern?
Comments: To: "Huang, Ya" <Ya.Huang@amylin.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Ya:
If copyright included manner of data presentation, Visicalc and Xerox
would own Microsoft! One cannot copyright an idea. Anyone who 'steals
the mind of the author' violates a copyright. If another author
(designer, developer) could not likely have come up with a data
presentation except by copying a copyrighted work, he or she would be a
violating the author's copyright.

Better to start with something in the public domain (which I heard a
Stanford Law professor describe as a 'lawyer free zone'). Most
commercial products have many public domain ancestors. That will keep
you on ethical as well as legal high ground.
Sig

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu [mailto:owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu]
On Behalf Of Huang, Ya
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 2:32 PM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Another OT: Copyright concern?


Hi there again,

Suppose I saw a commercial product demo, and I liked the way how the
data is presented to users. I know this product is very expensive with
many fancy features. For my daily work, I'll be interested in about 50%
of those functions. I then gave it some thought and came up a SAS based
system that mimic the 50% functions I need, and another 50% is based on
my own idea. Would this be considered a violation of Copyright?

Thanks

Ya