[WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

[The Cunctator]

On 4/2/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> >       Under US law, the keywords you would want to understand
> > are called "compilation copyright".
> >
> > http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
> >
> > "A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling
> > of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or
> > arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes
> > an original work of authorship."
>
> But if this list was compiled by Wikipedia editors (as JzG claimed when
> arguing that it's OR) then the _editors_ own the compilation copyright
> and are perfectly within their rights to release it under the GFDL.
>
> >       And actually, "facts about the show" CAN be owned!
> >
> > http://www.rcfp.org/news/1998/0824i.html
> >
> > "SECOND CIRCUIT--A trivia quiz book testing readers' knowledge and
> > recollection of lines from the 'Seinfeld' television show does not
> > qualify as a "fair use" and as such constitutes copyright infringement
> ..."
> >
> >       In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get
> > useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out
> > to a mailing list and debating them from intuition.
>
> But we the editors have to make these sorts of decisions dozens or
> hundreds of times per day. We _have_ to try to figure out what copyright
> law means, we can't go running to a professional lawyer with every
> question. And personally, I believe that any law that is so byzantine
> and obscure that a layperson it applies to cannot figure out what's
> legal most of the time is a really bad law. If copyright law was like
> that we might as well just give up because if someone wants to sue
> there's really nothing at all we could do to avoid it.


Exactly the point of avoiding copyright paranoia.