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British Court Issues Bizarre Copyright Ruling
dipfan writes "In a re-run of the Lotus v Borland case that went to the US Supreme Court, the High Court in London has allowed a copyright infringement battle between two rival airline booking programs to go to trial, despite agreement by all sides that the two programs are written in different code. The airline Easyjet is being sued by software house Navitaire, creators of an online booking system called Openres, over Easyjet's booking system named eRes, developed by Bulletproof Technologies of California. Openres was written in Cobol, while eRes was written in Visual Basic, and the programs are also different in structure.
But, according to the FT article: 'Parallels had been drawn between appropriating the "functional structure" of a computer system and commandeering the plot of a book, the judge noted.' If Navitaire wins, then any program that works like another program - even if written in different code - could be vulnerable. What happened to the principle that you can't copyright an idea? Bulletproof is counter-suing
Navitaire in the district of Utah."
And the prosecutor is a Mr. Black Adder right?
Soon you'll beable to sue your neighbor for having two eyes and a nose.
This could put a great new twist on the IE vs Netscape story.
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Cheerio!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
they should try again!
2 1337 4 u!
One of these days I'm gonna sue my computer for stealing my life. Who knows? I may get some money out of it.
1. Sue computer
2. Profit!!
Decameron
diegoT
I copyrighted it, thankyou. You shall be receiving your bill shortly.
all that pain clouding the judges' decision. ;-)
Ford has filed suit against General Motors for making something that also has four wheels and can transport passengers, by way of an internal combustion engine.
A Ford spokesperson has said: "There will be more lawsuits in the future against other vehicle manufacturers, but we felt like we needed to go after the biggest fish first.
"We realize that this will be met with some hostility, but we are doing this to protect a consumer, we feel that anyone else making such a product is watering down the concept of a 'vehicle' and that having this protected will allow us to continue to innovate.
"Also, we are in talks with SCO to discuss a possible licensing scheme, whereby all owners of non-Ford cars can pay a fee to have their cars properly licensed for Ford's IP."
No, he wouldn't be a) the copyright would have already expired and b) he'd be too busy scratching at the lid of his coffin to go to court.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I fully expect before long for a set of parents to sue their children for copyright infringement, for creating unauthorised "derivative works" based on their DNA.
This is clearly a criminal case. Bulletproof should be charged in criminal court for using Visual Basic. I don't ever want to hear "airline" and "Visual Basic" in the same sentence.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I have a similar story on my web site written in pig latin therefore I will be suing /. for copyright invringement. Anyone posting to this story will have to pay me $699.00.
-Darl McBribe.
The software company "Navitaire" has announced they are changing their name to "Naivete".
A company spokeperson stated "our new corporate name better reflects our understanding of copyright law."
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
No thats embrace and extend, this is a totally differnet thing...:-)
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
If you wrote your own dance song, just because it had 3 stanzas, a bridge, and a chorus, and was in F sharp, that doesn't mean that the authors of every other dance song that had 3 stanzas, a bridge, and was in F sharp could sue you for copyright infringement
True, but they might send you a letter asking nicely that you never write a song in the key of F# again, or failing that, offer large amounts of money for you to never play it on the trombone.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Considering that Shakespeare stole heavily from older works I think he best keep his mouth shut.
:-)
Your post accurately points out a perfect example of how our modern, enlightened Intellectual Property system prevents thieves, such as Shakespere, from infringing the IP of others' hard work.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
This is going to be a disaster for the romance novel industry.
- It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. Stupid Monkey!!
Hey, without streamlining, how well do you think a penis would deal with the gap between the thumb and four fingers?
Everyone knows that Shakespeare stole all his stories from his army of monkeys on typewriters.
...they're both written in awful languages!
LOSE is spelled L.O.S.E! I am not generally a spelling nazi, but for the love of god why the fuck can't anyone on slashdot spell "lose"?
if the guy who wrote the first "Hello, world" were british, he would be a billionaire by now (was it Kernighan, Ritchie, ???)
Come on, tell the truth. We all know that Shakespeare copied Hamlet out of SCO's System V source code.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Robert J. Forsythe, PhD
WED Cryogenic Research
Annaheim California
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Respect for IP will decrease from the current high regard that people have for IP (as evidence by the success of Kazaa) to even lower depths.
I pee on IP!
Yea, but Newton won his copyright case the good ol' fashioned way. He got all his friends to denounce Leibniz by publishing articles that he wrote through their names, got himself appointed to the head of a mathematical commission, and then blacklisted him, forcing him to die as a pauper. He reputedly laughed at him after the funeral. Terribly nice fellow, though, I heard he made these fabulous cookies...
I'm not sure about "octopus" though. Is the plural form "octopuses" or "octopi"? I know I've heard (non-techie) people pluralize it as "octopi" so that plural form must be at least semi-legit.
I think technically it may be octopodes, but I didn't study ancient Greek. The common usage in these here parts is octopuses, but if you don't want to embarrass yourself in the local pet shop when buying two of them then try this:
You: Can I buy an octopus please?
Shopkeeper: Will that be all, sir?
You: Hmm, better give me another to keep it company.
Gr
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
So you can't copy a plot anymore? Oh well, Hollywood can forget about any British releases of their films.