[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[FT2]

I just got curious and read up on Bridgeman vs. Corel. To my complete
surprise, though heard in the US, it cites UK precedent (Privy Council,
House of Lords) in forming its opinion -- it is /not/ purely a case based
upon US law.

It turns out the case was heard under UK law (!). It cites as authorities a
Privy Council case ruled by the UK Law Lords, *Interlego v Tyco
Industries*(on which we have an article):

"Take the simplest case of artistic copyright, a painting or a photograph.
It takes great skill, judgement and labour to produce a good copy by
painting or to produce an enlarged photograph from a positive print, but
no-one would reasonably contend that the copy, painting, or enlargement was
an "original" artistic work in which the copier is entitled to claim
copyright. Skill, labour or judgement merely in the process of copying
cannot confer originality."



"Lord Oliver held that in order to afford copyright protection on a copy of
a work, "[t]here must in addition be some element of material alteration or
embellishment which suffices to make the totality of the work an original
work". He stated that such an alteration or embellishment must be "visually
significant", and that it is insufficient simply for the alteration to
convey "information". Thus the court held that the modifications that
Interlego had made to its designs did not constitute an original work, and
thus were not affored copyright protection. Although they may have involved
skill, labour, and judgement, that skill, labour, and judgement lay solely
in the process of copying."

 Full ruling here <http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1988/3.html>.  it
also cites the UK House of Lords in a prior case, with a remarkably apposite
quote:

"By attributing new periods of copyright protection to every minor
alteration in the form of a brick which is recorded in, such a drawing they
seek to obtain, effectively, a perpetual monopoly. In *Re Coca-Cola Go's
Applications [1986] 2 All E.R. 274*, at 275, the House of Lords drew:
attention to the undesirable practice of seeking to expand the boundaries of
intellectual property rights beyond the purposes for which they were created
in order to obtain an unintended and undeserving monopoly."



"To accord an independent artistic copyright to every such reproduction
would be to enable the period of artistic copyright in what is, essentially,
the same work to be extended indefinitely. Thus the primary question on
Tyco's appeal can be expressed in this way: can Lego, having enjoyed a
monopoly for the full permitted period of patent and design protection in
reliance upon drawings in which no copyright any longer subsists, continue
their monopoly for yet a further, more extensive period by re-drawing the
same designs with a number of minor alterations and claiming a fresh
copyright in the re-drawn designs?"

   Given that Bridgeman has been cited as a purely US based precedent, this
could be quite a major change in my understanding of the legal position :)

FT2