4 ms·

> For a bit of fun and to build a case, I thought it would be a cool experiment to try find the Aboriginal flag in as many pre-existing artworks as possible. W

> For a bit of fun and to build a case, I thought it would be a cool experiment to try find the Aboriginal flag in as many pre-existing artworks as possible. Wouldn't this be the exact thing that the copyright holder would want too, only not "for fun" but for litigation? I'd be interested if it ever existed before the original artist made it but have my sincere doubts is even a remote possibility, historians seem to be of the opinion he just made it up in the 70's and it stuck. Flags have never held meaning to real indigenous culture.

luckylion 6y ago
pre-existing is the keyword there, I believe. You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator.
- njharman 6y ago
  > You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator. Depending on jurisdiction and when copyright was claimed (laws change) that is not necessarily true. In USA use to be first to file was awarded the copyright. Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Such a photographer can claim copyright on photo of a bridge. Or editor for a collection of public domain poems.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    You're mixing up patents with copyright. First-to-file is an element of patent law, where priority is given to the first person to file the patent as opposed to the prior version in the US law (first-to-invent) where priority would be given to someone who demonstrated that they invented it first. The actual law for the US (17 USC §201 (a)): > Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work. You cannot own copyright on a work that you have not authored, unless it has been (lawfully) transferred to you. Incidentally, this is basically the core of the "Happy Birthday" copyright dispute: it was never established that the Hill sisters authored the lyrics, so they never had a copyright interest in it.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      They're probably not confusing patents/copyright. AIUI, USA didn't adopt copyright as an unregistered right, ratifying the Berne Convention, until 1988, 100 years after most of the rest of the World. I don't quite know how registration works (see copyright.gov) but it seems there might be a presumption of ownership that's established? They still have registration in USA and it affords greater rights (higher damages in cases of infringement I think). Notably, novelty is not an absolute requirement for copyright registration.
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        The Copyright Act of 1976 is the big recent overhaul of US copyright, which switched copyright to automatic registration and established regimes for unpublished and orphaned works, which was previously largely handled by state laws, usually under common law. The requirement that the author must hold copyright seems to be implicit in earlier versions of copyright law all the way back to the 1790 Copyright Act; I don't see any provision that would let one copyright a work one was not the author of. Registration creates prima facie evidence that the registrant is the legitimate owner of the copyright. Anyone who disputes the claim in the face of a registered copyright has the burden of proof to demonstrate that the registration was erroneous.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Yes, but you're not copyrighting those pre-existing things in that case, you're copyrighting the collection, organization etc. And if somebody else had done those before, you'll again have a hard time copyrighting it (given that you've copied it). > Such a photographer can claim copyright on photo of a bridge. But not of the bridge, which is the pre-existing thing. His photo didn't exist before. Though photos are, in my opinion (and I'm not a lawyer), one of the really interesting things that I believe make a lot of the issues of our current system of copyright very visible: 100 photographers can stand in the same spot, aim their identical cameras at the same point and make virtually identical photos, and can all, individually, claim copyright on their photo that, if you printed them out and mixed them, they couldn't pick from a line-up.

luckylion 6y ago

pre-existing is the keyword there, I believe. You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator.

njharman 6y ago
> You can't claim copyright on something you copied, you have to be the original creator. Depending on jurisdiction and when copyright was claimed (laws change) that is not necessarily true. In USA use to be first to file was awarded the copyright. Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Such a photographer can claim copyright on photo of a bridge. Or editor for a collection of public domain poems.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  You're mixing up patents with copyright. First-to-file is an element of patent law, where priority is given to the first person to file the patent as opposed to the prior version in the US law (first-to-invent) where priority would be given to someone who demonstrated that they invented it first. The actual law for the US (17 USC §201 (a)): > Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work. You cannot own copyright on a work that you have not authored, unless it has been (lawfully) transferred to you. Incidentally, this is basically the core of the "Happy Birthday" copyright dispute: it was never established that the Hill sisters authored the lyrics, so they never had a copyright interest in it.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    They're probably not confusing patents/copyright. AIUI, USA didn't adopt copyright as an unregistered right, ratifying the Berne Convention, until 1988, 100 years after most of the rest of the World. I don't quite know how registration works (see copyright.gov) but it seems there might be a presumption of ownership that's established? They still have registration in USA and it affords greater rights (higher damages in cases of infringement I think). Notably, novelty is not an absolute requirement for copyright registration.
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      The Copyright Act of 1976 is the big recent overhaul of US copyright, which switched copyright to automatic registration and established regimes for unpublished and orphaned works, which was previously largely handled by state laws, usually under common law. The requirement that the author must hold copyright seems to be implicit in earlier versions of copyright law all the way back to the 1790 Copyright Act; I don't see any provision that would let one copyright a work one was not the author of. Registration creates prima facie evidence that the registrant is the legitimate owner of the copyright. Anyone who disputes the claim in the face of a registered copyright has the burden of proof to demonstrate that the registration was erroneous.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Also in USA, for instance, copyright is granted for collections, organizations, arrangements or compositions of pre-existing things. Yes, but you're not copyrighting those pre-existing things in that case, you're copyrighting the collection, organization etc. And if somebody else had done those before, you'll again have a hard time copyrighting it (given that you've copied it). > Such a photographer can claim copyright on photo of a bridge. But not of the bridge, which is the pre-existing thing. His photo didn't exist before. Though photos are, in my opinion (and I'm not a lawyer), one of the really interesting things that I believe make a lot of the issues of our current system of copyright very visible: 100 photographers can stand in the same spot, aim their identical cameras at the same point and make virtually identical photos, and can all, individually, claim copyright on their photo that, if you printed them out and mixed them, they couldn't pick from a line-up.