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All your URL are belong to me.
MY URL!!!
Thats a long url...
Gimme!
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,671,714.WKU.&OS=PN/6,671,714&RS=PN/6,671,714
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,671,714.WKU.&OS=PN/6,671,714&RS=PN/6,671,714
Thats some thick technical stuff in there. But someone actually went through the trouble of copyrighting URLs? Or the invention of URLs? They'll never actually be able to enforce copyright violations of that, there's just too much information being moved to track such a wide range of violations. It's a formality Im guessing.
it is not copyrighted, it's patented. there is a difference between those two things.
if you have something patented, you can charge money if somebody else wants to
"invent" a new thing and uses the same thing you do.
ex.: you patented a hydraulics system that is very small (think: centimetres) yet powerful.
now, if someone else contrives of a robot that uses your hydraulics system
(as long as the patent's valid), they have to pay you patent rights.
copyrights, however, protect an author's immaterial work, such as: literature, music, movies.
getting a patent on the thing URL is alright. copyrighting the term Uniform Resource Locator is not.
if you have something patented, you can charge money if somebody else wants to
"invent" a new thing and uses the same thing you do.
ex.: you patented a hydraulics system that is very small (think: centimetres) yet powerful.
now, if someone else contrives of a robot that uses your hydraulics system
(as long as the patent's valid), they have to pay you patent rights.
copyrights, however, protect an author's immaterial work, such as: literature, music, movies.
getting a patent on the thing URL is alright. copyrighting the term Uniform Resource Locator is not.
did you get that title off of G4?
Actually, getting a patent on a URL is not alright. Because, you see, that means that all devices and programs which use the URL would need to pay the fee. Besides the obvious webbrowsers, there are also lots of uses of url's within a system (smb:///). Thankfully, the patent was on e-mail addresses in the form name@subdomain.domain.tld. Yes, that is one of the standard forms of e-mail address throughout the world. But, hey, money is money.