On 1/24/07, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 09:00:22PM +0200, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
In particular, you seem to be confused about what [[derivative work]] actually means. Go ahead, look it up in Wikipedia -- that page explains it better than I could.
# A "derivative work," that is, a work that is based on (or derived # from) one or more already existing works, is copyrightable if it # includes what the copyright law calls an "original work of # authorship." Derivative works, also known as "new versions," include # such works as translations, musical arrangements, dramatizations, # fictionalizations, art reproductions, and condensations. Any work in # which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other # modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship # is a "derivative work" or "new version."
To use my example, above, my taking a photograph of an artist posing next to his painting does *not*, to me, seem to meet the description there, quoted from the statute, of a derivative work, as it's not *based* on the original painting: he could have been standing next to *anything*.
Whether or not it's a derivative work is largely irrelevant, because a photograph of a painting definitely *is* a copy.
Anthony