On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 10:48:30 -0700, "Matthew Brown" morven@gmail.com wrote:
In this case, the list of cars in the show was assembled from a primary source using simple criteria: any car shown was listed.
Um, no. This is a classic case of "hard cases make bad law". If the list is taken to have been presented as part of the content of the show, then it is almost certainly a copyright violation (I have contacted the rights holders to check, of course). If, on the other hand, we argue that it is not a copyright violation because the list itself is not presented as part of the show's content, then the list in the article is a novel synthesis from original materials.
It rather depends on whether you count a list which identifies the vehicles by photograph rather than text label, as being equivalent to the same list translated into text labels,
Each week Clarkson and the Hamster stand up and invite the audience to help them decide whether the Ford Blah is cool or not; the decision made, it goes on the wall.
The Top Gear criterion of "coolness" has been the basis of derivative works published by the BBC (e.g. Hammond's "What Not To Drive"), but the only way to get the list as text is either to watch every show and write them down, or to recognise the pictures. Of course, I believe it doesn't actually matter which you do, because reproducing the list *in its entirety* is to a very /very/ high degree of probability a violation of the BBC's copyright.
It's further complicated by the fact that the BBC don't appear to consider it important enough to put on their website. So the one authoritative single source that might exist for the list as text, but which would at the same time unambiguously make it copyright, does not exist.
I also apply the simple man's copyright test: if something you produce is based entirely on copying from another source which asserts copyright, it's probably copyright violation. Needless to say, Top Gear has a copyright statement at the end of every broadcast.
Guy (JzG)