Re: Aphorisms and Copyright

From: Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 18:51:19 -0700

On 8/24/98, Daniel J. Schaeffer <daniel_schaeffer[_at_]kirkland.com> wrote:

>

> I can see no reason under U.S. copyright law or regulations why a
> collection of original short phrases (one-liners, aphorisms, epigrams
> or what-have-you) should not be suitable subject matter for copyright,
> even if any single such phrase, taken alone, would not be.

Neither do I, but that wasn't the issue in Foxworthy. One of the issues raised by the defendants in Foxworthy was that the copyright of one of Foxworthy's books was a compilation registration and therefore could not cover the individual components of the compilation. The court didn't need to look at whether the compilation itself was copyrightable because it wasn't the compilation that was copied.

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Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
UCLA School of Law '98
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1206/

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Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 01:49:43 GMT