[Wikimedia-l] Copyright on Xrays

[Anthony]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:14 AM,  <Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I really doubt non-artistic works are copyrighted as a general rule anywhere

I'm not sure what you mean by "non-artistic", but if you mean "purely
utilitarian", as that term is interpreted by the court, then this is a
good point.

I was going to suggest UK, but a quick search suggests that you
*can't* copyright purely "utilitarian" works in the UK.

(I wouldn't use the term "non-artistic" though.  There are plenty of
works that are copyrighted in the US and all over that I wouldn't
consider "art", and while an argument could be made that such works
shouldn't be copyrightable, court precedent is clearly adverse to that
argument.)

> Now clearly being able to judge that X is a utilitarian work is the more normal problem with
> this argument and why it is seldom used. Diagnostic images are one of the few clear-cut
> situations.

How do you distinguish whether or not it is a "diagnostic image", and
what makes it clear-cut?

Even using the term "utilitarian" rather than "artistic" I can still
come up with a large number of examples of things which seem pretty
"clear-cut" as "utilitarian" to me, but yet which receive copyright
protection.  gzip, for instance.

> And even if it is only the US, other countries would not recognize copyright on diagnostic
> images created in the US, which gives us at least the NASA situation.

Do you have a citation for this?  Also, is it where the image is
created, or where it is first published, or something else?