On 1/15/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Excessively long plot summaries of films and books can constitute a copyright violation because while they're not an exact copy, they damage intellectual rights of the copyrighted material.
Could you back that up, please? As I understand it, this is way too broad an interpretation of copyright law. It's only illegal to actually _copy_ something that's copyrighted, not to merely do something that reduces its "value."
Can't the same apply to summarizing a magic trick manual to the point while the text is not a
copy
it still violates the copyright of the text?
I don't see how. Copyright covers a specific tangible expression, not the underlying ideas contained within it. One can make a movie out of a book and then have the book be in public domain while the movie remains copyrighted, for example. I think the sort of IP protection you're thinking of is more along the lines of trade secret or patent law, which as far as I can tell don't apply here.
That's why I'm mentioning the instructional videos and/or manuals as the tangible expressed bit of the magic. The written instructions to magic trick are copyrighted - no doubt.
Mgm