Hacker News Reader

matthewmarkuson Ask HN: Is legal language copyrighted?

This is an interesting question. It looks like one could claim a copyright in contracts in theory, but there are several practical problems to making a contract copyrightable. Personally, I always thought that copyrighting contracts might make them unenforceable since copyrights could limit a public court's ability to interpret and publish rulings on protected contracts.

Here are the best resources that I found on this matter:

Re: copyright notice on contract http://www3.wcl.american.edu/cni/9908/23029.html

matthewmarkuson If you're going to do good science, release the computer code too

Hear, hear! I did a whole series of posts analyzing a skeptic's claims:

http://matthewmarkus.posterous.com/raw-darwin-airport-temper... http://matthewmarkus.posterous.com/darwin-airport-temperatur... http://matthewmarkus.posterous.com/darwin-airport-temperatur...

I found at least one error/discrepancy in each side's output. Of course, neither side released any code. The disclosure of methods is a prerequisite for repeatable experiments, the cornerstone of science.