Re: Snooze/lose (Was: Academics and coursepacks)

On 26, August 1998, Timothy Arnold-Moore <tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>
> George L. Abbott <glabbott[_at_]library.syr.edu> wrote:
> >
> > With a car I have an option there are millions of cars all of which
> > serve pretty much the same purpose - to get me from one place to
> > another. If I can't use yours I can use some other one. With a poem
> > each poem is unique (in fact that is a premise behind copyright).
>
> I have to disagree here. Uniqueness is a criteria guaranteed by patent
> but not copyright protection. Independent creation of an identical work
> is not infringement. Of course for a long work you might have trouble
> convincing a judge or jury that you did not copy it ;-) But for a short
> work like the phrases being discussed in the other thread, I think this
> distinction is worth noting. In a copyright infringement suit, the
> plaintiff has to prove on the balance of probabilities that the
> infringing item was copied from the work that originated with the
> plaintiff. That premise does not guarantee uniqueness by any stretch.
>
> I do agree with your main premise about obtaining cars as opposed to
> obtaining a poem though.

Yes, written works are curious things, for it is not the contents per se, but rather their arrangement, that has uniqueness, otherwise almost anything written would be an infringement of Webster's Third New International.

If I took, for example, a Steven King or Anne Rice novel, lumped all the words together and alphabetized them, I would get something like this:

a a a
all all all
an an an
any any any

etc.

you get the picture.

So it is in fact the arrangement and number of words that is "unique" (more or less).

Michael A Scarpitti
Assistant Editor
Materials Evaluation
1711 Arlingate Lane
PO Box 28518
Columbus, Ohio 43228-0518
800 222-2768 Ext 207
614 274-6003 Ext 207
Fax 614 274-6899
<mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 15:03:24 GMT