While the interpretation of the Berne Convention will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, Chief Justice McLachlin of Canada's Supreme Court offers significa

While the interpretation of the Berne Convention will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, Chief Justice McLachlin of Canada's Supreme Court offers significant guidance https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc13/2004scc13.html https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc13/2004scc1... > In addition, an original work must be the product of an author’s exercise of skill and judgment. The exercise of skill and judgment required to produce the work must not be so trivial that it could be characterized as a purely mechanical exercise. We should check the German Supreme Court as well https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=347fb9e3-0348-4af9-b7cf-ed1d7449dbf0 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=347fb9e3-0348... > for the protection of works of applied art under copyright law “a degree of creativity which allows, from the view of a public open to art and sufficiently skilled in ideas of art, to be called an ‘artistic’ performance” In both of your examples and your further question alas there is nothing clear cut here. If someone copied Example 2 and decided to sell it to a museum as a piece of modern art and the museum decided to accept it as such, there's a very high chance of a successful lawsuit of infrigement. In most cases, however, you might find it extremely challenging to prove in a lawsuit that something made from LEGO reaches the treshold of originality. And can you sell instructions and LEGO pieces? Sure, why not. You own the LEGO pieces, under the first sale doctrine, LEGO has exhausted their rights to them. Creating new instructions are free speech and as such, they are absolutely impossible to stop. Even in jurisdictions where free speech is more limited in the United States, legislators have been extremely careful on setting those limits. (Even where lockpicking is not legal, lockpicking videos absolutely are. Agatha Christie novels are sold despite they could be viewed as recipes on how to commit murder. And so forth.) Now, if someone produces a different set of instructions that results in the same thing, there's nothing you can do to stop them as ideas are not copyrightable. You could patent it should it rise the level of patentability.