From: Antoun Nabhan (anabhan@law.harvard.edu)
Date: Mon May 08 2000 - 10:59:25 PDT
At 11:12 AM 5/8/00 -0600, savamutt@trailnet.com wrote:
>wondering today, in the wake of this latest virus massacre, why I
>didn’t think about applying for a copyright on the phrase "I heart
>you" a long time ago. I mean, with anti-virus machine-gun nests and
Because your intuition is sharper than your aspiration. :-)
17 U.S.C. 102, the statute which defines the scope of "what can be
copyrighted," is generally construed to exclude words, short phrases,
names, titles, and slogans. See 37 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations)
section 202.
This got fought out a bit in the context of greeting card companies, who
attempted to copyright all sorts of the treacly banalities that make
bluemountain.com look meaningful, then sued each other when the next guy
published a card with a banana-wielding monkey reading "I miss you a bunch."
Now, the ack-ack batteries built into the network firewall ... there's an
idea!
--A.
P.S. Just think if Snoop Doggy Dogg had been able to copyright the word
"beotch"?!
Antoun Nabhan | 617.901.8871
Berkman Center for Internet and | anabhan@law.harvard.edu
Society at Harvard Law School | antoun@arrayex.com
Is your paradigm shift automatic or stick?
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