Can a model itself be copyrighted? https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf > To register a work with the U.S. Co

Can a model itself be copyrighted? https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf > To register a work with the U.S. Copyright Office, you must identify the copyrightable subject matter forming the basis of your claim. To be copyrightable, a work must qualify as an original work of authorship, meaning that it must have been created independently and contain a sufficient amount of creativity. Most works meet these conditions. Some works, however, contain elements that either lack the required creativity or are placed outside the bounds of copyright by the law. This circular highlights different types of noncopyrightable subject matter. For more information, see chapter 300, section 313.3, of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices.1 https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-authorship.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-... > 313.2 Works That Lack Human Authorship > Similarly, the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author. The crucial question is “whether the ‘work’ is basically one of human authorship, with the computer [or other device] merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work (literary, artistic, or musical expression or elements of selection, arrangement, etc.) were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine.” > Examples > Reducing or enlarging the size of a preexisting work of authorship. ---- I'm going to go with that models themselves lack human authorship or any sufficient amount of creativity and thus aren't copyrightable. They may fall under trade secret... but they need to be treated as one. This would also mean that licenses based on copyright (most of FOSS licenses) wouldn't be applicable to them.