On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 4:02 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
IANAL, but my interpretation would be that X-rays are not copyrightable, since they are not creative works, period.
Note that e.g. in the Czech Republic, “[a] photograph or a work produced by a process similar to photography” has lower threshold on originality/creativity; it is protected “if it is original in the sense that it is the author’s own intellectual creation” (while a work of another types needs to be “a unique outcome of the creative activity of the author”). And this is language from the European Copyright Duration Directive (Article 6: “Photographs which are original in the sense that they are the author's own intellectual creation shall be protected in accordance with Article 1. No other criteria shall be applied to determine their eligibility for protection.”), so other EU countries probably have similar legal constructions.
It might be debatable whether medical X-ray images are, in fact, “photographs or works produced by a process similar to photography” (while “traditional” X-ray images probably are, I would argue CT pictures are not), and whether they are “the author’s own intellectual creation” at all.
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]