Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

Rob Myers said:
> On the copyrightability of circuits (but are chips circuits?):
>
> http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright/1996-02/0251.html

Finally got to peruse your links.
This one had a lot of round and round until the end when
someone pinged a lawyer who straightened them out:

:Although the circuit boards'
:plans are probably protected by copyright, the copyright is weak,
:because the boards are useful articles under section 101, and copyright
:does not protect industrial design.  Even if the plans are protected,
:they are protected only in their aesthetic aspects, and then only to
:the extent that their aesthetic aspects are separable from their
:utilitarian aspects (see section 101's definition of "pictorial,
:graphic, and sculptural works").  Since the boards' layouts are
:probably dictated solely by function, and not by aesthetics, copyright
:protection is likely to be weak or nonexistent. Unlike architecture
:(before the 1990 Act), circuit boards are not designed for aesthetic
:viewing.
:
:Dr. Dratler
:William S. Richardson School of Law
:University of Hawaii

Chip layout would be dictated solely by function, not aesthetics,
so in answer to your question "are chips circuits?", I would
guess that they are treated similarly.

Which would mean that copyright no longer applies when you
convert an opencore.org piece of code into silicon.

I actually prefer the separation. Having hardware copyrights
would be about as bad as allowing software patents, and it's
bad enough having software patents.