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

["Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>]

> Hmmm. I totally understand what Janice is saying from
> a "Creative" Writing standpoint. But does the same
> hold true for "Scientific" Writing?
> 
> Lets say (for example) that I am a Technical Writer
> employed by a company that produces salt crystals in
> assorted colors for human consumption. My assignment
> is to create a sales brochure for our newest color
> -"Really Red". Since I am not a SME (on salt), I start
> the research process and find the following
> information in a chemistry "book"(hard copy or online,
> the source does not matter):
> 
> NaCl has a cubic unit cell. It is best thought of    
> as a face-centered cubic array of anions with an
> interpenetrating fcc cation lattice (or vice-versa).
> The cell looks the same whether you start with anions
> or cations on the corners. Each ion is 6-coordinate
> and has a local octahedral geometry.
> 
> I decide that I want to use this paragraph (as
> written)in my brochure. Is this information subject to
> copyright laws or does this fall into the "Common
> Knowledge" domain? 
> 

Copying the paragraph verbatim would be infringement. 
The uncopyrightable facts are that NaCl has a cubic unit 
cell and that each ion is 6-coordinate and has a local 
octahedral geometry. If you just said that, you'd be 
stating common fact. 

It is the *expression* of the fact that is copyrightable. 
In the above paragraph, for example, the author has 
mentioned how best to picture the cube. That sort of 
individual expression is protected individual work.

> 
> If that paragraph is subject to the copyright laws,
> isn't everything we write (from a technical
> standpoint) a "spin-off" of someone else's work? Can
> we state that anything written is really 100%
> original?  

The *way* that you present the facts is copyrightable; the 
facts themselves are not. You are correct that you could 
extract the facts about the salt molecule from the above 
paragraph, rewrite it yourself, and have actually "spun off" 
someone else's work. But the point is that you could also 
have researched the salt molecule, or done experiments to 
prove those fact, and written it up. 

At base, you might want to think about this issue this 
way: if no one could prove or reasonably deduce that you 
had seen someone else's work in doing your own, then it 
is common fact and not protected. "NaCl has a cubic unit 
cell" could be written from direct observation or by 
looking "salt crystal" up in an encyclopedia or by reading 
the above extract from a web site. But it is highly unlikely 
that you would independently write "It is best thought of as 
a face-centered cubic array of anions with an interpenetrating 
fcc cation lattice (or vice-versa)." without having seen the 
work that you quote above.

-- Janice

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