Re: Re: Authors Guild's Paul Aiken Opposes 'Turning Copyright Law Upside Down' -- Except When the Guild Is Helping Publishers Impose a 'License By Default'

On 10/5/05, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
> I also think it's worth pointing out that, to the extent Circular 14 is
> discussing what constitutes a "derivative work" it's doing so in a section
> 102/103 context; not a section 106/501 context, and those two contexts
> don't always track each other very well. (Nor should they, IMHO.)

This comment intrigued me . . . I was wondering if you could expound or give an example. Also, let me see if I have an example (I could be wrong here, lets see).

You write a book that has chapters with short sentence titles. When strung together, the titles actually are a short poem. Without your consent, I index the book by simply copying the short titles in order and I put the page numbers they are found on on the right side. I publicly display the index.

My index is not copyrightable for at least 2 reasons, I did not have your authorization, and my selection and arrangement was not original.  However, my public display of the index is an infringement, because the index is based upon your work?

Am I close? (I am also running the Seinfeld Aptitude Test case through my head - basically an extremely original "index" of the seinfeld episodes . . . which was an infringement of the copyrights in the show - a slight twist on the above).

--
Mike Oliver
Bowie & Jensen, LLC
29 W. Susquehanna Ave.
Suite 600
Towson, MD 21204