Re: Aphorisms and Copyright

On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> I wish there had been more analysis in the order. The judge was
> clearly in a tough spot, forced either to acknowledge the validity
> of Brilliant's copyright in these short sayings, or to tell Brilliant,
> in effect, that every time he wrote one of these sayings for his
> syndicated newspaper feature, it was fair game for anyone to exploit
> without a license.

I don't have any problem with the latter.

It would be interesting to see whether the registrations of the epigrams (assuming the epigrams themselves were individually registered -- as opposed to being registered as part of a registration for a larger work, such as TX-316-217, for the book entitled "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent, and other brilliant thoughts") included any correspondence between the applicant and the Office, arguing about registrability -- at least in the early cases, before Brilliant and the Office might have settled into a pattern.

I don't see any registrations for the works:

> > > Epigram No. 1:
> > >
> > > "I MAY NOT BE TOTALLY PERFECT,
> > > BUT PARTS OF ME ARE EXCELLENT."
> > >
> > > Epigram No. 2:
> > >
> > > "I HAVE ABANDONED MY SEARCH FOR TRUTH,
> > > AND AM NOW LOOKING FOR A GOOD FANTASY."
But I suspect that it's simply because the online database only goes back to, I think, 1978.

--
Terry Carroll       |    
Santa Clara, CA     |    
carroll[_at_]tjc.com     |       
Modell delendus est |