In another thread it was commented in passing that "plot elements" are copyright. The loosely-formed statement might naturally lead to an idea that you cannot describe the plot of a work. This conclusion would be false.
Copyright protection affords the author of a work a way to prevent others from profiting off their work in a form substantially similar to the underlying work. When there were only a few forms of tangible media, this wasn't an issue.
The essential feature of copyrighting plot elements, is to prevent a person from taking a book and turning it into a play, movie, audio recording which necessarily is *not* substantially similar to the original work in physical form, but yet is, in mode, tone, intent, characters and plot.
However I can take your movie, and create a spoof-book without violating your copyright, because parody enjoys a wide-ranging latitude from the copyright law.
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.
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On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 6:58 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Copyright protection affords the author of a work a way to prevent others from profiting off their work in a form substantially similar to the underlying work. When there were only a few forms of tangible media, this wasn't an issue.
The essential feature of copyrighting plot elements, is to prevent a person from taking a book and turning it into a play, movie, audio recording which necessarily is *not* substantially similar to the original work in physical form, but yet is, in mode, tone, intent, characters and plot.
Nothing like a nice amateur explanation of copyright law without any citations to reliable sources.
IOW, no, that's not at all how copyright works.
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 8:58 AM, WJhonson@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