The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com wrote:
On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:21:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the Top Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective interpretation than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.
That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes. Like saying it was No. 1 in the charts. But, as with the charts, including the entire list violates copyright.
Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there.
I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread) but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The decision to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process. Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be copyright.
The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.htm...
"the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.
Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings."
What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
On 03/04/07, Sam Blacketer sam.blacketer@googlemail.com wrote:
The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.htm... "the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.
So ... book chapter titles? Episode titles? A list of serial titles? No-one seriously argued these be scoured from Wikipedia as imminent dangers.
- d.
On 4/3/07, Sam Blacketer sam.blacketer@googlemail.com wrote:
The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com wrote:
On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:21:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the
Top
Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective
interpretation
than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.
That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes. Like saying it was No. 1 in the charts. But, as with the charts, including the entire list violates copyright.
Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't
there.
I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread) but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The decision to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process. Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be copyright.
Claiming that it is clear does not make it so. In fact, it is clear that this is not a violation of copyright.
The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.htm...
"the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.
Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings."
What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
Which has been compiled by Wikipedians, not by the show.
Sam Blacketer wrote:
I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread) but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright. The decision to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process. Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore a violation of copyright. The copyright rests in the compiling of a list by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be copyright.
I'm going to split the difference and say that it's not clear either way.
If the list had appeared and we copied it down exactly, letter for letter, that would be clear to me. (Actually, come to think of it, it wouldn't be completely clear, as I gather the list (rather than the wall itself) would be at best a small part of the show, so it could well come under fair use. But let that pass.)
Otherwise, it's less obvious. What songs are used in a show is a creative choice. Who's *in* a show is a creative choice. Who does what is a creative choice. We copy all of those things down in our articles, at least in the same sense we copy down what's apparently on the Cool Wall. But I don't think any of those are copyright violations because we are not copying the exact form.
Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.
William
On 4/3/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.
Copyright law is exceedingly complex, in fact, and in many edge cases even a trained and experienced copyright lawyer can only give an educated guess and an estimate of risk.
-Matt
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 4/3/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.
Copyright law is exceedingly complex, in fact, and in many edge cases even a trained and experienced copyright lawyer can only give an educated guess and an estimate of risk.
Ultimately, except when someone's out to make a bloody-minded point, it's cost effectiveness that will decide whether a suit is launched.
Ec
Sam Blacketer wrote:
The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com wrote:
On 4/3/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:21:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the Top Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective interpretation than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.
That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes. Like saying it was No. 1 in the charts. But, as with the charts, including the entire list violates copyright.
Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there.
I am not a copyright lawyer (thanks be to God after reading this thread) but it is quite clear that this list is a violation of copyright.
The sad thing is that even if everyone who has had something to say in this thread were a copyright lawyer the opinions would have been just as divided.
The decision to put cars in various sections of the 'Cool Wall' is a creative process.
Yes.
Copying the results of this creative process in its entirety is therefore a violation of copyright.
Maybe. Are we copying the information or the presentation. If it is the information it is not protected. If it is the presentation it very well could be. The "merger principle" essentially states that a copyright cannot prevent the use of information. A piece of Lexmark software that effectively prevented the use of third-party ink cartridges was ruled uncopyrightable on that basis.
The copyright rests in the compiling of a list by arbitrary criteria; compiling a list by objective criteria would not be copyright.
The copyright does not rest in the act of compiling as much as it does in the compiled product. I don't think it matters whether the criteria are objective or arbitrary. An objective criterion can be creative or original.
The Stanford guide to Copyright and fair use is clear:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-a.htm...
"the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.
Yes. Two identical works can both be protected independently as long as neither was copied from the other. This cannot be a practical issue except in the case of very short material. The argument is most often raised in relation to musical passages. In our present case, if for the sake of argument we assume that the list is protected, a person in the US who was unaware of the British TV programme and come up with his own independent but identical list would be entitled to his own separate copyright protection. Of course, that's a highly improbable situation.
Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings."
What we have here is a creative selection of listings.
That depends on whether you consider "all" to be more creative than an alphabetical listing. A selected subset of the list is more likely to be creative than all of them. Who created the list is a factor too. The material did not exist in list form untilt our own Wikieditor got involved. This is why I asked before: If we had applied our category process to this problem would we still have the same copyright issue?
Ec
Ec
On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:09:46 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The sad thing is that even if everyone who has had something to say in this thread were a copyright lawyer the opinions would have been just as divided.
Olde Joak: If you laid all the copyright lawyers in the world end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion :-)
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:09:46 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
The sad thing is that even if everyone who has had something to say in this thread were a copyright lawyer the opinions would have been just as divided.
Olde Joak: If you laid all the copyright lawyers in the world end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion :-)
I can tell from your olde spelling that this version must go back to the time when people believed in a flat earth. Since then they just go around in circles. :-)
Ec