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Originally Posted by scrounge
Sure you did. I'm not saying I don't believe you but....no, that's exactly what I'm saying.
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You want his name, or that of the firm he worked for? Chris Garvey.
Just now I Googled "uncopyrightable", and one of the first hits was game rules. See
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/i...copyright_law/
Here's another discussion:
Games and Other Uncopyrightable Systems – Madisonian: Essays on Governance and More
The principle is recognized worldwide. From
https://2jk.org/english/?p=137 , "In a recent case, where an Indian company created a game similar to Scrabble, the Indian court ruled that while one can protect the trade-name of Scrabble, the rules of the game were uncopyrightable (Mattel, Inc. v. Agarwalla):"
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In the realm of copyright law the doctrine of merger postulates that were the idea and expression are inextricably connected, it would not possible to distinguish between two. In other words, the expression should be such that it is the idea, and vice-versa, resulting in an inseparable “merger” of the two. Applying this doctrine courts have refused to protect (through copyright) the expression of an idea, which can be expressed only in a very limited manner, because doing so would confer monopoly on the idea itself.
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Or look up
Affiliated Hospital Prods., Inc. v. Merdel Game Mfg. Co. See
https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/defaul...20Doctrine.pdf
Besides, Fed's baseball rules have practically zero original content, being cribbed from
OBR. Consider also how the wording of Fed's rules is arrived at: by a committee, having gotten input from surveys all over the country, making tiny amendments year after year. If you could produce a copyrighted work by such a process, who could possibly be determined to own it? Tiny pieces here and there? I doubt the committee members or secretary even sign a work-for-hire agreement abjuring personal copyright.