

Copyright nuance: how to infringe by enhancing a public domain work - grellas
http://copyrightlitigation.blogspot.com/2011/07/eighth-circuit-adding-phrase-or.html

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bediger
This seems like a bad decision on the Court of Appeal's part. No, I'm not a
lawyer, but I'm taking reality, not the-law-has-already-crawled-up-inside-
itself legalistic fantasy.

The point of a "public domain" is to have a huge stockpile of stuff, images,
stories, characters, mechanisms, processes, that everyone can use to do things
with. "Evoking" a copyrighted thing, that's just the sort of use that public
domain works are supposed to do.

Clearly, whatever Court of Appeals here has totally bought in to the concept
that a state can grant ownership of an idea to someone, that an idea is
property, only usable by a single entity.

Decisions like this and the "People United" mis-judgement from the US Supreme
Court really tarnish the courts by moving away from reality, and towards a
fantasy where legalistic reasoning governs.

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chc
I don't understand what you mean when you say the public domain is meant to
"evoke a copyrighted thing." I'm not aware of any rationale for the public
domain in which its purpose it to produce knock-offs of works owned by
somebody else.

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bediger
Well, what does "evoke" mean? Produce something akin to an "echo" of
recognition. That's not a knock-off, that's a reminder, an homage, a tribute,
a modification, a derivative.

Beyond that, a copyright does not grant ownership: it grants some temporary
rights to a work, in exchange for that work ending up in the public domain in
the near future. You can't "own" an idea or a concept, because someone else
can invent the same idea or concept. A copyright is a state-granted privilege,
nothing more, nothing less.

