Copyright Issues

[Dan Strick]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:34:11 +0000, Mick Walker wrote:
>>
> ...
> Now, getting to the point, I was shocked when I went into the toilet
> facilities in the pub, and found one of those vending machines that sell
> novelty items of a sexual nature, featuring on the design something that
> looked remarkably similar to the BSD Daemon.
> ...
> The company that supplies these vending machines is called Naughty Vend
> (http://www.naughtyvend.com/). I have checked their site, and I find no
> reference to and copyright credits to the original artist. To the best
> of my knowledge, the BSD Daemon is copyrighted by Marshall Kirk
> McKusick.
> Is this a case of copyright theft? As obviously they are a profit making
> company. Or have i got totally the wrong end of the stick.
> ...
>>

(I suggest this thread be moved to the chat mailing list.)

It is not clear that copyright law applies here.  I doubt that the concept
of a cute demon is copyrightable.  In order to be a copyright violation,
it might have to be obvious that the *only* way the vending machine daemon
could have been composed was to intentionally copy a daemon image whose
copyright is held by Kirk McKusick.  (This one does look an awful lot like
some versions of the BSD daemon.)

Trademark law might be more relevant.  Even though though the vending
machine belongs to a marketplace not obviously connected to one in which
Kirk McKusick uses his daemons as a trademark, the vending machine machine
image does include a URL and I suppose one could at least argue that the
vending machine usage damages the value McKusick's trademark by
associating it with a product that protects a bunch of ... :-)

A further complication is that Naughty International Limited is a European
company and the alleged property rights violation occurred in Europe.

These issues are a bit subtle.  If you really care about them, you should
ask a lawyer who works with intellectual property rights law.

Dan Strick