[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Anthony]

On 4/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:46:26 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> >Let's face it, just mentioning NOR and fancruft in starting a thread
> >where you sought responses on a copyright question was bound to give the
> >wrong impression.  You've been around long enough to be aware of the
> >uncanny ability of members of this list for finding the wrong emphasis
> >in a message. :-)
>
> Well yes, that's true.  What I hadn't realised was that there appears
> to be a degree of philosophical opposition to the idea of copyright,
> or at least to the idea that we should only include what we know to be
> clean, rather than waiting for conclusive proof before removing
> anything.  That's a reversal of the burden of proof, as far as I'm
> concerned.

I'd say there's probably a large degree of philosophical opposition to
the idea of copyright over a collection of 4 groups of 20 or so names
of cars - not as much over the idea of copyright itself.

If you really want to exclude absolutely all copyrighted materials
from all articles, lest a lawyer goes through and gives a professional
opinion on whether or not the article is infringing, most articles on
TV series would be decimated.  If a list of 20 names of cars is
copyrighted, what about a list of 20 character names?  Seems to me
that would be even *more* likely to be copyrightable, as the
individual names themselves are creative.

At that point, maybe it's time to start a new project for fictional works.

Anthony