On Mon, 03 Apr 2000, Bruce E. Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> There has been a lively discussion over the last week or two
> on cyberia-l about collective works and whether selection AND
> arrangement are required for copyright, or if one or the other
> is sufficient.
The idea that both the selection and arrangement must be minimally creative for copyright protection of a compilation is wrong and leads to absurd results. For example, if I create an anthology called "The 12 Greatest Short Stories of the 20 Century" and order them chronologically, the selection is minimally creative but not the arrangment. Does this mean I get no collective work copyright? This despite the fact that selecting the "best" 12 stories of the 20th Century clearly meets the creativity requirement?
The Supreme Court in Feist said the vast majority of compilations are copyrightable. But this would not be the case if both the selection and arrangement had to be creative, since so many compilations are arranged chronologically, alphbetcially or numerically.
Stephen Fishman
<sfish55[_at_]yahoo.com>
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