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I am not sure I understand your point of distinction. Yes, Die Gedanken Sind Frei, the knowledge that exist in the researcher head is not copyrighted. The knowl

• tzs 5y ago
  A researcher discovers, say, a particular way to make a room temperature superconductor, and writes a paper describing how to make it, how they tested it, and giving a theoretical explanation of how it works. That paper would be subject to copyright. However, if I go read the paper at the library and then use the knowledge I gained from it to make the superconductor and test it and applied the theory I learned from the paper to other superconductors, that would not violate the copyright of the paper. If I wanted to then tell you how to make the superconductor, I would not be able to make a copy of the original paper and give you that copy. That would be violating the copyright on the paper. But I could write up my own description of how to make it in my own words, using what I learned from the paper, and give you that description. That would be fine from a copyright point of view.