Comments on: You Can’t Copyright a Fact https:/2008/11/you-cant-copyright-a-fact/ Developer resources for the X-Plane flight simulator Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:55:36 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Benjamin Supnik https:/2008/11/you-cant-copyright-a-fact/#comment-903 Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:24:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=286#comment-903 Jilles,

Almost: copyright is indeed about form, but in the United States, it is based on _originality_ of form, not just how much work went into the form. In particular:

http://www.bitlaw.com/source/cases/copyright/feist.html

That’s the ruling that makes the US different from where the EU and UK is going.

No question that the original document, as a whole, is probably copyrightable. But my point is that if the file is a set of facts, derived works that simply use the facts wouldn’t be derived works, because the facts they use would not be copyrightable.

]]> By: Jilles https:/2008/11/you-cant-copyright-a-fact/#comment-904 Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:04:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=286#comment-904 I’m pretty sure your analysis here is not correct. Basically, copyright is about the form (in this case a database) and not about the content (a list of facts). Compiling a list of facts constitutes a work that is (in the US automatically) under copyright. Using such a work to create another work, is something that needs permission from the copyright holder either (e.g. a license agreement). The new work is of course also copyrighted. That’s why encyclopedias, dictionaries, law books, etc. are all under copyright.

Of course using the facts in the work is subtlety different than using the work itself. You might argue that this is fair use.

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