Charles Mills has made the operative distinction very clear, but let me try another analogy.
Think of yourself, briefly, as Shakespeare. You have written Sonnet XXX, When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. Then can I . . . . . . You, Shakespeare, may copyright this sonnet, its specific content. You may not copyright the fourteen-line sonnet form and its rhyming scheme. Instances of a schema are copyrightable and protectable. The schema itself is not. You may, that is, protect yourself against the misappropriation of a sonnet that you write. You may not interdict the writing of [non-duplicative] sonnets by others. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
