Can FAQs Be Copyrighted?

scubacuda writes: "Are FAQs copywritable? Judge Barbara B. Crabb, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, in the case Mist-On Systems, Inc. v. Gilley's European Tan Spa, didn't think so."

Obvious sarcasm

[henben]

>Are FAQs copywritable? Sure they are. Just use the "cp" command or try dragging the icon into another folder. If you still have trouble, you need to check your file permissions. Oh, "copyrightable."

Re:A word to the editors

[mixbsd]

Yep, about as banal as BT suing Prodigy over a hyperlinks patent [theregister.co.uk]. Face it, anyone can make a crazy legal claim when it comes to intellectual property. Maybe someone should publish an "intellectual property lawsuit FAQ" somewhere to prevent such frivolous legal action in the future ;)

patents

[phunhippy]

Great! So how long before we discover FAQ's format have actually been granted a Patent by the USPO to some lucky individual out there ;)

What is the world coming to...

[Anonymous Coward]

... when the courts made a reasonable and fair judgement. Next people will be saying that M$ is not always wrong... [slashdot.org]

If it's copywritable?

[bo-eric]

Perhaps we can find the answer to that one in the Copywriting FAQ [wordsleuth.com]?

The REAL cause for alarm..

[TrebleJunkie]

I think that the real cause for alarm in all this is that there are people out there that *NEED* a frequently-asked questions list for a tanning spray.