[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[William Pietri]

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