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

["Mark Baker" <mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com>]

> A PS for Mark - Most Technical and Scientific writing
> is a derivative of another's work (i.e. an idea made
> tangible via the use of words) - in the purest sense.
> I am not an advocate of stealing another's work, but I
> do find the topic and how people respond to it very
> interesting.

One more time: It is not a copyright infringement to create a work which is
derivitive of the ideas in another work, because ideas are not protected. It
is an infringment to create works which are derivitive of the expression of
an idea: the specific written, drawn, painted, or composed work which
expresses those ideas.

Scientists may create new writing that expresses ideas which are derivitive
of the idea of other scientists. That's fine. They do not (we hope) create
new writing that is directly derivitive of the writing of other scientists.

Creating a brand new piece of writing that is a new expression of old
ideas -- or simply of someone else's new ideas -- is not derivitive work in
the copyright sense. It is new work, and is itself protected by copyright.

If you don't get the distinction between the idea and the work that
expresses the idea you are never going to understand copyright.

---
Mark Baker
Senior Technical Writer
Stilo Corporation
1900 City Park Drive, Suite 504 , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1J 1A3
Phone: 613-745-4242, Fax: 613-745-5560
Email mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com
Web: http://www.stilo.com

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