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69 points mastazi | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.385s | source
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ndriscoll ◴[] No.44412471[source]
Along similar lines, the Sega Genesis required games to trigger a routine in the console to show "Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises LTD." at bootup time, attempting to use trademark law to force game publishers to pay for a license from Sega to build games for the console. The court ruled that copying the code to trigger the message was not copyright infringement and the message itself was not trademark infringement because Sega's own design forced those things to make the hardware work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade

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1. hedora ◴[] No.44413435[source]
In general, if the thing is purely functional (like the logo), then it can’t be copyrighted and is not a trademark.

APIs are (generally…) not copyrightable for similar reasons.