] It is, I think, an elementary principle of copyright law
] that an author has no copyright in ideas but only in his
] expression of them. The law of copyright does not give
] him any monopoly in the use of the ideas with which he
] deals or any property in them, even if they are original.
] His copyright is confined to the literary work in which
] he has expressed them. The ideas are public property, the
] literary work is his own.

[ This is the text of a decision from a Canadian supreme court judge in a copyright infringement matter. There's some good stuff in here... the quote above caught me especially... this is something i think people need to remember. Also, I think the judge's definition of "original" makes sense - the work need not be entirely novel, but it does need to be a non-trivial product of skill and judgement. Even though the law it treats is canadian, and thus, not exactly useful to an american, it's a pretty good read. -k

p.s. ryan, there's a citation to the Emory LJ in there...]