Re: copyrightable vs. copyrighted (was Re: databases not copyrightable in the USA)
Andrew Suffield wrote:
>I don't see what's so interesting about the group of things in which
>copyright would subsist if the world were different.
Perhaps you've missed the point. I'll try more detail:
Whether there exists a valid copyright on a work depends on
* aspects intrinsic to the work
* aspects extrinsic to the work
"copyrightable" is generally used to refer to a work such that all the aspects
intrinsic to the work allow there to be a valid copyright on the work,
without considering aspects extrinsic to it.
One task is to determine whether the aspects intrinsic to the work prevent
there from being a valid copyright on it; this can be done with just the
work.
Determining whether aspects extrinsic to the work prevent there from being a
valid copyright on it is a rather different process requiring almost entirely
different information. Often people will do the first task and not the
second, so they want a word for what they've figured out.
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