The concept you are talking about is the threshold of originality and it is indeed depending on country and a moving target: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thres

The concept you are talking about is the threshold of originality and it is indeed depending on country and a moving target: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality As an example: if I use a seed to create a grainy texture, it probably isn't original. If I use the same image as a grain filter for a photograph, the result may be original (in a legal sense). Both operations are trivial and just a click of a button (or two), so I think the discussion about the ease is moot in that context.