over scènes à faire. In a business and computer program context, the doctrine of scènes à faire is interpreted to apply to the practices and demands of the businesses and industries that the given computer program serves. Hence, the concepts of idea vs. expression (merger doctrine) and scènes à faire relate directly to promoting availability of business functionality. In CMM Cable Rep., Inc. v. Ocean Coast Properties, Inc., 97 F.3d 1504 (1st Cir. 1996), the court compared the merger and scènes à faire doctrines. The court said that the two doctrines were similar in policy, in that they both sought to prevent monopolization of ideas. However, merger applied when idea and expression were inseparable, but scènes à faire applied despite separability where an external common setting caused use of common elements and thus similarity of expression. Limits of doctrine The doctrine must be a matter of degree—that is, operate on a continuum. Consider the Second Circuit's ruling that the scène à faire for a movie about the South Bronx would need to feature drunks, prostitutes, vermin (rats, in the accused and copyrighted works), and derelict cars. The principle must have a limit, however, so that something is outside the scènes à faire doctrine for South Bronx movies. Perhaps, cockroaches, gangs, and muggings are also part of the South Bronx scène à faire, but further similarity such as the film having as characters "a slumlord with a heart of gold and a policeman who is a Zen Buddhist and lives in a garage" surely goes beyond the South Bronx scène à faire. There must be some expression possible even in a cliche-ridden genre." Cases Cain v. Universal Pictures, 47 F.Supp. 1013 (United States District Court for the Southern District of California 1942) This was the case where the term was introduced, when the writer James M. Cain sued Universal Pictures, the scriptwriter and the director for copyright infringement in connection with the film When Tomorrow Comes. Cain claimed a scene in his book where two protagonists take refuge from a storm in a church had been copied in a scene depicting the same situation in the movie. Judge Leon Rene Yankwich ruled that there was no resemblance between the scenes in the book and the film other than incidental "scènes à faire", or natural similarities due to the situation. Walker v. Time Life Films, Inc., 784 F.2d 44 (2d Cir. 1986)