4 ms·
Your broader point is a good one, but my understanding (though IANAL) is that while copyright does protect the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself
by kvb 13y ago
Your broader point is a good one, but my understanding (though IANAL) is that while copyright does protect the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself, exactly where to draw the line is a bit of a fuzzy area (see "substantial similarity"[1]). It's not just a work exactly as it was expressed - a written work might infringe even with different names and wording. One test that has been proposed is if "the ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them, and regard [the] aesthetic appeal [of the two works] as the same". On the other hand scenes that are required by the genre generally aren't protected even if they're copied pretty closely (according to scène à faire doctrine[2]).
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc%C3%A8nes_%C3%A0_faire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc%C3%A8nes_%C3%A0_faire
- SEMW 13y agoWe should be careful about conflating principle and evidence. That looks like an evidential test to help a court decide whether copying had taken place. If you turn up with what looks like a tweaked copy of Harry Potter claiming you wrote it yourself, no-one's going to believe you -- but if you did somehow manage to prove it on the balance of probabilities (e.g. you've lived your whole life in a sealed metal box and can prove you've never read Harry Potter or something), then you're fine, you've rebutted the evidential presumption.