Exactly. Copyright doesn't do what he thinks it does.

It's surprising how little understanding the average person has of the 3 major types of IP registration. Most people I know working in creative and artistic fields could not tell you the difference between a copyright, patent and trademark.

Why surprising? They're all very abstract concepts, and most artists outside the tech field don't have a use for patents or trademarks.

I often have observed issues involving people who believe they or others own processes, algorithms and names, or that others have exclusive right to such in the visual and tangible art fields. It's quite important to understand what rights people have when they start asserting rights. For instance, a bead maker claiming that they have a 'copyright' on a certain style of glass bead which they seem to think involves a combination of the name, process and result. People use (mis) understandings of IP to intimidate others into not competing with them, despite not understanding what rights they actually have or don't have. The intended audience, other artists, don't understand what rights they or the claimant actually have, either. The main lack of understanding I see is a) that processes cannot be covered by copyright and b) names are not covered by copyright.

Note that he has a patent on metaphone3.

Can you link to that? I've only been able to find rejected applications so far.

As far as anybody can tell and based on his comments, no he doesn't have any patents. He mistakenly thought his algorithm was copyrighted and algorithms are not copyrightable in US and generally in many countries around the globe.