Slashdot Mirror

Even Baskin Robbins knew to stop at 31 flavors.

I count 55.

Basically, copyright was designed to protect creative works. [...] If ever copyright existed, it doesn't belong to Coupons.com. Take a look at this specimen. Clearly, this is more than mere "forms whose wording is functional and virtually identical to millions of other forms."

You can see the copyright statement on the coupon, and I see no reason that it shouldn't enjoy copyright protection. It's obviously a creative work.

More than that, a coupon is not copyrightable. That was my first thought as well, but then I reconsidered.

For starters, nearly all coupons contain company and product logos, which I realize are trademarks, but none the less are protected.

And then you get into the coupon design, which is done by a creative department. The usual rule of thumb is that an artist's output is generally copyrightable.

So while it seems silly that a coupon could enjoy any type of copyright protection (obviously a mere coupon code would never be copyrightable), I can't jump to that conclusion that the layout, as done by the artist, could never qualify for copyright protection.

I did some quick looking around at online printable coupons, and they all seem to assert copyright protection. Take a look at this coupon. You can see the copyright statement at the bottom, and just looking at the coupon, it's obvious that it's a creative work, and as such, should enjoy copyright protection.

Joining the celebration is Baskin Robbins, which is serving up a free scoop of ice cream in honor of the day Yahoo began climbing the ranks from its humble beginning.

If your going to link just the name Baskin Robbins, shouldn't that go to their corporate site for more information about the company? Should the article not be linked to the "...serving up a free scoop of ice cream..." part? There should be a standard, where you link articles to the verb and nouns are used for clarification.