Re: Is creating an index for a book an infringement of the author's copyright?

Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
> >
> > It's my understanding that titles and short phrases are not
> > copyrightable. I believe that any phrase short enough to appear in
> > an index would probably be too short to be considered protected by
> > copyright.
>
> This is true but only as far as it goes. Just because a particular
> phrase in the index is not a copyrightable constituent of the index
> does not mean that the index, as a whole, is not copyrightable.
> Just as in a compilation, wherein the individual facts or components
> compiled may have no copyright protection, the validity of the
> copyright derives from the creativity in the selection, coordination,
> and arrangement of the compilation. So, too, if an index were
> sufficiently creative in its composition and organization, could the
> index become protectable expression.

I just want to clarify: When I wrote the two sentences above I was specifically responding to a previous post that suggested that an index of a work might be an infringement of the work because it would have to use individual words and phrases (terms of art) from the original work itself, and these would be copyrighted. I wrote to disagree with that.

I do NOT disagree with Mr. Stock's suggestion that an index could be sufficiently creative to be an independently copyrightable work.

Bob Cumbow
<cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> Received on Thu Mar 12 1998 - 17:59:55 GMT