RE: How Many Trees? (WAS: URGENT: Immediate ethical issue)

["Gillespie, Stephen (Contractor)" <Stephen -dot- Gillespie -at- Persnet -dot- Navy -dot- Mil>]

great explanation - thanks, Valerie!
Steve G.

-----Original Message-----
From: Valerie Priester [mailto:hammerl -at- buffalo -dot- edu]
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 2:01 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: How Many Trees? (WAS: URGENT: Immediate ethical issue)

You can't copyright facts. You copyright works of authorship (which 
include dramatic works, music, novels, choraeography, art, images, sound 
recordings, etc.). An unrelated example would be, say a hockey game. You 
can't copyright the game summary, but if you write an article for newspaper 
XYZ, it can be copyrighted. The game summary is a collection of facts -- 
number of shots, number of saves, who played, who earned a penalty. I can 
take the sum of those facts and write a lovely, entertaining article using 
my own words and it's copyrightable. So, too, is the broadcast, which 
includes play-by-play calling, as well as commentary. Likewise, if you had 
a recipe, the ingredients list is not copyrightable. If you have a unique 
literary expression to describe how to combine them, or you present them in 
a video (see food tv broadcasts for example), then you've got copyright. 
Now, getting back to trees, I could count them all, but it's still not 
copyrightable. I could write a moving essay about them, and that would be. 
I could create a documentary about them, and that would be.
>
>> I'd say that is the type of
>> 'esoteric', NOT-everyday run-of-the-mill common knowledge that does
>> not fall
>> under Fair Use.
>
As Jan noted, fair use doesn't involve whether something is common. Purpose 
of the use (commercial or educational), nature of the work, amount used in 
relation to the whole, and effect of the use on the value of the 
copyrighted work all count toward whether something falls under fair use, 
at least in the US.


Valerie Priester
hammerl -at- buffalo -dot- edu

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