A while back JW notice that some clever chap had been ripping content from his, and other peoples Excel blogs, and reposting it, un attributed. A bit more dig from part time PI Deb Dalgleish unearthed a few sites, all belonging to the same chap, with yet more content theft. Some of the stuff was from this blog, and I tried to get Microsoft to take it down. No luck there and I gave up.
Today I saw a tweet from Jimmy saying that he’d just raised “another” DMCA
Don't mess with the Jimster
Anyway, yesterday I listen to this podcast from Dot Net Rocks, which is about copyright trademarks and so on in software. It’s really interesting, and might be useful.
Can a spreadsheet, a vba module be copyrighted? Does Microsoft own the license but only sell you the right to use?
Kind of mirky….like copy and paste.
My understanding is you can’t copyright programming code. But you CAN copyright blog articles and that is what I will not tolerate.
There is a great amount of disinformation and misunderstanding surrounding this issue.
Anything you create is copyrighted. A blog post, a fingerpainting, even VBA code. You don’t need to register it anywhere, the copyright exists as soon as the work is created.
Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted. What you create is an embodiment or implementation of the idea, and that is where the copyright lies.
Microsoft doesn’t own the rights to your code, that’s silly. That’s like saying since you used Word to write your Great American Novel, Microsoft owns the copyright. Or you wrote it with a crayon, and Crayola owns the rights.
Funny thing about IP rights regarding software, at least in the US. If you are paid to write a book or screenplay, the publisher (or whoever pays you) owns copyright, unless they grant it to you (but you’re not Tom Clancy, so forget it). If you are paid to write code on the other hand, you own copyright, unless you give it away to the client. Lawyers across the land don’t even understand it, but (and I speak from experience here) they’ll waste hours of your time with their drivel.
I’m not an expert, just a well-read participant in the process. If you have a real concern, find an intellectual property lawyer who specializes in copyright issues.
What a copyright grants the owner is the right to control how the work is duplicated. Aside from limited uses which are clearly spelled out in the Fair Use Doctrine, you can prohibit anyone from duplicating your work no matter what their motivation may be.
A common misconception is that copies can be made so long as nobody profits from the copying. This is not a valid use of a copyrighted work.
The Fair Use Doctrine allows for limited use of copyrighted materials. One such use is making a backup copy of a computer program or a music CD. Another is to use an extract that serves as the basis of a critical review, such as the charts I frequently post about on my blog.
Of course, there are practical limitations to one’s copyrights. I’m not going to go after someone who posts a snippet of code from my web site to help solve a problem or illustrate a technique. It’s nice if they cite me, and if they’ve used a substantial piece of code, I might send them a friendly email to remind them.
However, when someone grabs a whole post and posts it on their web site, even with attribution, that’s an affront. Especially if it’s one of those ugly sites with more ads than content. Unfortunately these are the least approachable infringers, they’re often overseas, and they rarely care. It usually requires dealing with their internet hosts or advertisers.
Jon: Crayons and Fingerpainting? You’ve spent too much time in the Visualizations world.
>>There is a great amount of disinformation and misunderstanding surrounding this issue.
Totally agree Jon.
If you listen to that podcast the chap clears up exactly what’s copy righted or not when you write code, as well as a load of other things.
You can indeed copyright your code, and just because your working for the man does not mean it’s his! Interesting
@Mike and Jon, Yeah or the early learning centre! ;-)
So we are clear, if I write code that tell a spreadsheet to save it self every 15 minutes is that copyright infringement on Microsoft autsave set up? Can they take me to court for plagiarizing their code?
I think if you post vba code or any code in the public domain (internet, public library) you are going to get copies made. Just like Microsoft template library.
Enforcement is really tough. How can tell what was your vba code from someone else. That is tough.
Kevin, that’s right listen to the pod cast I mention and you will see that the answer to those 2 questions is
1. No, but you might be in hot water if MS came after you with a patent. If MS got a pattern for the auto save then I think you might be in trouble. – in theory. Basically it do do with the difference between copyright law and patent law.
2. yes the answer is to do stuff better than other people, so that when you get copied, people still buy your product because the service is better etc.
I always had a problem with shutting down Napster because by all rights they should have shut down every library in this country. If I write a book on VBA code or Excel and people take the book out of the library and copy that code to create their own “system” that they turn around and sell or provide some “benefit” then aren’t they infringing on copyrights while also denying the author the benefit of the book sale.
This is very unclear like the usefullness of Microsoft’s OneNote.