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How can you copyright a wordlist anyways? I'm really not familiar with scrabble but doesn't it just contain plain English words without any context? They could

How can you copyright a wordlist anyways? I'm really not familiar with scrabble but doesn't it just contain plain English words without any context? They could of course copyright the order but couldn't you just shuffle the list and publish it. An explanation how copyright works in this case would be great.

Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
Some countries have a database right besides normal copyright. Copyright seems like a stretch, but I can understand why hobbyists don't want to take the risk of getting sued even if the law should be on their side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right
- Matt3o12_ 11y ago
  Thank you very much for the link but this sounds really stupid. Couldn't I just create a database with all posibile additions ranging from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 and sue everyone who publishes a book/paper etc because of the "investment that is made in compiling a database" and it doesn't matter if they calculated the result themselves because they could've just used my database. This is really stupid. I mean I get copyright but I think copyright should only apply to "the 'creative' aspect[s]" if the author wants that.
  - detaro 11y ago
    No, you couldn't, because (at least for most of the implementations listed in the article) it DOES matter if they actually used your database or not. Also note database rights not necessarily are copyrights.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    We have had a similar discussion on Hacker News about a company that claims to be mechanically generating all possible arrangements of words of a certain length and copyrighting those, as well as all possible images of a certain size, and all possible musical melodies of a certain length, and so on. The reason this is not considered copyrightable is that there must be some evidence of creative effort. Owning an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters does not entitle you to copyright everything they generate.

Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago

Some countries have a database right besides normal copyright. Copyright seems like a stretch, but I can understand why hobbyists don't want to take the risk of getting sued even if the law should be on their side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right

Matt3o12_ 11y ago
Thank you very much for the link but this sounds really stupid. Couldn't I just create a database with all posibile additions ranging from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 and sue everyone who publishes a book/paper etc because of the "investment that is made in compiling a database" and it doesn't matter if they calculated the result themselves because they could've just used my database. This is really stupid. I mean I get copyright but I think copyright should only apply to "the 'creative' aspect[s]" if the author wants that.
- detaro 11y ago
  No, you couldn't, because (at least for most of the implementations listed in the article) it DOES matter if they actually used your database or not. Also note database rights not necessarily are copyrights.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  We have had a similar discussion on Hacker News about a company that claims to be mechanically generating all possible arrangements of words of a certain length and copyrighting those, as well as all possible images of a certain size, and all possible musical melodies of a certain length, and so on. The reason this is not considered copyrightable is that there must be some evidence of creative effort. Owning an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters does not entitle you to copyright everything they generate.