Mark Williamson wrote:
There was an attempt to pass a bill through congress to protect databases and collections of information (such as phonebooks... would it include a dictionary though?) under copyright, but it didn't pass.
So currently, I can make my own phonebook using the database from the phone company, sell it at $1mil each, and not be penalised.
Dictionaries have their own set of problems. The Webster was frequently in court during the late 19th century over infringements of its copyrights. It lost some significant cases. Cookbooks also fall into this class of works that are really a reflection of a society's collective knowledge. If I invent a dictionary definition that is identical to what is found in a published dictionary I am not infringing their copyright. If that published dictionary is an obscure one I may never have seen it, and my definition is original it's good. Often the definition may be the only one reasonably possible. For many kinds of works it is highly improbable that such a thing would happen. Dictionaries and cookbooks are exceptions. In the area of music (rather than lyrics) cases often hinge on whether the defendant was familiar with the plaintiff's work. A definition in a modern paper dictionary may itself be copied from an older public domain work, and therefore be non-copyrightable. Copying a single definition can also be fair use.
Patterns of behaviour thus become more significant if one is seeking to establish the infringement of copyrights in a dictionary. It would be difficult to establish such patterns when many editors are working independently.
Original definitions do present a different problem. If someone generates a new definition based solely on his own limited experience with life that definition can be grossly inaccurate; that speaks to the reliability of the work that contains it, which for us is Wiktionary.
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