[WikiEN-l] Plot Element Copyright

[Stephen Bain]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 8:58 AM,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Obviously it should be clear, that for the intents of describing a work for
> a review, you must actually describe it, and you may, just as well describe
> the  first fifteen minutes, as the last, or the entire work.  Since a review, or
>  article, or synopsis, is not in-fact substatially similar, *even if* it
> gives  away the entire plotline, there is no copyright infringement.  The only
> time this would be an infringment is when, in fact, you are copying
> substantially someone else's plot line synopsis.  Or in the case where your  synopsis
> essentially *is the primary or motive cause* for people not to purchase  the
> product.  I don't know of actually any case where this has been shown  to have
> occurred.

There's a good discussion of issues similar to these in Baigent v
Random House Group [1], where authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy
Grail [2] sued the publisher of the Da Vinci Code [3].

There what was found to have been taken was some of the ideas, but no
protectable expression. However the court did discuss what might have
been necessary to constitute reproduction of a substantial part, and
taking plotlines and so forth probably would have amounted to
reproduction.

Note that US law and British law (and Australian law, etc) have
different tests here, substantial similarity is a US test. I'm not
sure how that test works in practice but it does not seem correct to
me to say that "a review, or article, or synopsis, is not in-fact
substatially similar" in all cases; surely one has to compare the
original work to that which is taken (and not the infringing work as a
whole) to assess substantial similarity. This reminds me to put the
US-centric [[copyright infringement]] on my to-do list.

--
[1] http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/247.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com