Programming languages cannot be copyrighted

So does this mean that I can copy someones' source code and sell it on?
Oh, that's what Microsoft did.

Also Sony can't sue me for dumping their code from their chips?

Or does the article just mean the programming language itself?
 
It's the same as the original bios issues back in the 80's. You can't copy a bios, or application, but you can watch what it does in response to a particular input and write your own code to do the same thing.

Once you look at someone else's code you then have to conclusively prove you didn't make use of that knowledge or you are in breach.

Regardless of what you do, you can;t copy someone else's "look and feel" for their interface, but that is irrelevant if you output is plain text.
 
But you can mathematically prove that the law on UI look and feel contradicts this law..

look & feel is an output of an application based on input. Where does art and the software program differ?

Programming is artistc :)
 
If you can, why have you not shown the formula that does so?

The hole point of the blind input/output approach is that you don't see the programming so you can't be copying it. If the output of the application does have copyright protection then you can't make you output the same. The key issue is you can't copyright simple/short text.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
This won't stand. Else game companies couldn't copyright their games.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make a great deal of sense? Game companies write programs using languages, which in themselves, according to this, cannot be copyrighted, that doesn't mean the code they then produce can't be.

Furthermore, nobody is saying you can't copyright, patent or trademark that assests belonging to a game. Even if that were the case, it isn't exactly easy to copy a games code, they deliver you a binary not source code.

Anyways, I actually think the title is slightly misleading. I'm fairly sure this means you can't call copyright on someone copying your interfaces, such as header files, functions or API calls. I believe if you were to take a direct copy of the functionality beyond that, they would potentially have a case for copyright. This would be a hard feat to pull off mind you, as once again you aren't really delivered source code in languages produced by companies that'd like to disallow you from doing this.

Going back to games though, I guess this may mean you can't technically call copyright on a replacement game engine given a clean room implementation, and things like wine will remain de facto legal, which is a net positive in my opinion.
 
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I think there is a bit of confusion here - not being able to copyright a language doesn't mean you can't copyright code.
 
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