Copyright

Study Material
PA R T 1
 CHAPTER 1

Property right vis-a-vis

Copyright
Copyright is a property right, but it is different from property in a physical
thing.
For Example,
If I buy a book from a bookstore, I will now own the book and can do what I
like with it as a physical object: read it, stand on it or throw it in the garbage. But
someone else will typically own the copyright in the book: either the author or
whoever the author has transferred the copyright to. That person too has rights
over the book, such as the right to make copies of it. If I make a copy of the book
without that person’s consent, I infringe his rights in the book. I may have paid for
the book, but neither the copyright owner nor I intended to deal with the
copyright in the book, and the sale price certainly did not include anything for that
copyright.
Case-Law:
In Re Dickens [1935] Ch. 267 (U.K.: High Court & Court of Appeal)
Facts:
In his will, the 19th century English author Charles Dickens left “all my private
papers whatsoever and wheresoever” to his sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth. He
left the remainder of his “real and personal estate (including my copyrights)” to his
children. Included in the estate was the manuscript of The Life of Christ , which
Dickens had handwritten for the use of his children, and which he did not intend

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to publish. Some years after Dickens’s death, however, a trustee acting for the
surviving family sold the copyright of the manuscript to a publisher and also gave
him a photocopy of the original manuscript to be used as the basis of the book to
be published.
Issue:
Whether (1) Hogarth’s heirs, (2) Dickens’s children’s heirs, or (3)
both, were entitled to the money under the publishing contract. If
both were entitled, then how would they share?
Judgment:
(1) The bequest of “private papers” passed only the property in the physical
manuscript of The Life of Christ , not any copyright in it.
(2) The bequest of Dickens’s “personal estate” passed all the author’s
copyrights, and would have done so even if the word “copyright” had not been
specifically mentioned.
(3) The consent of both estates would be needed before the manuscript of The
Life of Christ could practicably be published
Rule:
The common law has this conception with regard to rights of property in a
literary work written, marked or impressed or otherwise recorded upon some
material thing namely, that the material thing might, as a subject of property, be
separated from the literary work recorded on it and that the literary work might be
regarded as an incorporeal subject of property and be owned separately from the
material thing upon which it was recorded. … Interpretation:
Question:
Did Georgina Hogarth take the two species of property, the
physical thing, the manuscript, and also the incorporeal property, the
copyright, or did she only take the physical thing, the manuscript?
• The work was written by the author not for publication but for the benefit of
his family, and he retained it for their private study. …

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 • Some copies were made with the author’s permission, one, for instance, for
his eldest son…; but the work was unpublished in the author’s lifetime and was
not intended for publication.
• In these circumstances, like letters, diaries and memoranda, it comes fairly
within the description of private papers.
• The manuscript, that is the pieces of paper with the writing on them,
therefore passed on the death of the author to Miss Hogarth.
• If Charles Dickens had finished some novel or story but had not published it
at the date of his death, it would have passed under the bequest of his
copyrights.
• The phrase, “bequest to Miss Hogarth of ‘all his private papers whatsoever.’”,
standing alone, obviously does not properly or naturally carry with it a right to
publish private papers. …
• The true construction of the will, the exclusive right to publish the Life of
Christ passed to the trustees of Dickens’s children, whilst the original manuscript
became the personal property of Miss Hogarth. If the trustees and Miss
Hogarth could not agree there would be a sort of deadlock. The trustees might,
perhaps, have published from a copy, but Miss Hogarth could not properly have
published from the original without the consent of the trustees. …
• If one person had been the owner of the copyright and another the owner
of the manuscript, neither one singly could have conferred upon the purchasers
the rights conferred by the deed of assignment. The copyright was practically
worthless if the purchaser could not make use of the
The Court therefore ordered that the monies be divided equally between both
estates.

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 Case-Law:
Facts:
• A developer spent $130,000 in producing a redevelopment plan for the City
of Edmonton in Canada under a contract that provided that the “property” in
the plan would pass to the City if City did not adopt the plan.
• The City was under no obligation to adopt the plan, and in fact did not do so.
It, however, proceeded to adopt another plan produced by its officials and
incorporating substantial parts of the developer’s plan. The developer sued the
City for breach of copyright.
• The City accepted that the contract gave it only the right to the property in
the physical plans, but did not pass the developer’s copyright to it.
Judgment:
• The Court therefore decided that the City had to pay the developer
substantial damages for infringing copyright in the plan
• Webb & Knapp [i.e., the developers] were necessarily taking a gamble in
agreeing to spend an estimated $100,000 on the prospect that the city would
adopt its plan.
• If the city did adopt the plan Webb & Knapp stood to reap substantial
financial benefits. If the plan was not adopted Webb & Knapp stood to lose the
sum of $138,484.90 it actually expended in the preparation of the plan.
• Had the city merely exercised the right it had under the contract not to adopt
the plan that would have been the end of the matter.
• The plan and the plan material would, under clause 4, have become the
property of the city. It would then have had the property rights but not the
copyright in the plan.
• But the city did not just elect not to adopt the plan. It instructed its
commissioners at the meeting on March 22, 1962, to evaluate the plan. The
commissioners proceeded to do so, but they did not merely evaluate the plan,
and instead of reporting back to council recommending either adoption or

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rejection, they came to the meeting on June 25, 1962, with a plan of their own
which was substantially the Webb & Knapp plan in a modified form. This use of
the Webb & Knapp plan and plan materials … was clearly a breach of the Webb
& Knapp copyright.
• The city, in accepting and acting upon the recommendations of its
commissioners, was purporting to accept without compensation the entire
benefit of the expenditure made by Webb & Knapp and eliminating Webb &
Knapp from the picture by not adopting the plan but still utilizing the ideas and
overall scheme of development which the plan envisaged. Webb & Knapp are,
therefore, entitled to damages for this breach of copyright. … Besides asking
what sum might fairly have been charged for a licence to use the copyright for
the purpose for which it is used, one may take into account all the surrounding
circumstances.
• Webb & Knapp are entitled to substantial damages for breach of copyright.
With a full appreciation of the difficulty in arriving at a proper measure of
compensation and in view of the undoubted and beneficial use the city made of
the plan and plan material, I would assess the damages for breach of copyright
at $50,000.
***

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 IDEAS VS. EXPRESSION
POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. Copyright does not subsist in style
2. Copyright does not subsist merely in news
3. Copyright does not subsist in history, historical incidents or
facts
4. Copyright does not subsist in scientific principles or
descriptions of an art
5. Copyright does not subsist in mere principles or schemes
6. Copyright does not subsist in methods of operation
7. General ideas, e.g. for entertainment, are not protected by
copyright
8. Ideas may nevertheless be protected through means other than
copyright

Introduction
Copyright protects only a work’s expression, not the ideas it contains; ideas
may be freely taken and applied.
This long-standing principle of copyright law is affirmed by TRIPs, Article
9(2): Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures,
methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.

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 Case-Law:
Designers Guild Ltd v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd [2000] 1
W.L.R. 2416 (U.K.: House of Lords)
Facts:
The plaintiff ’s employee created an original design for a dress fabric. The
design consisted of vertical stripes, with flowers and leaves scattered between the
stripes, all painted in an impressionistic style. The plaintiff successfully marketed
the fabric. The defendant, having seen the plaintiff ’s fabric, then produced a very
similar design for its fabric and claimed that it had copied merely the “idea” of A’s
design, not its “expression”. The plaintiff successfully sued for copyright
infringement.]
Judgment:
The distinction between expression and ideas … needs to be handled with
care. It all depends on what you mean by ’ideas’.” Plainly there can be no
copyright in an idea which is merely in the head, which has not been expressed in
copyrightable form, as a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work. But the
distinction between ideas and expression cannot mean anything so trivial as that.
On the other hand, every element in the expression of an artistic work (unless it
got there by accident or compulsion) is the expression of an idea on the part of
the author. It represents her choice to paint stripes rather than polka dots, flowers
rather than tadpoles, use one colour and brush technique rather than another, and
so on.
The expression of these ideas is protected… The distinction between ideas and
the expression of ideas supports two quite distinct propositions.
I. The first is that a copyright work may express certain ideas
which are not protected because they have no connection with the
literary, dramatic, musical or artistic nature of the work.
It is on this ground that, for example, a literary work which describes a system
or invention does not entitle the author to claim protection for his system or
invention as such. The same is true of an inventive concept expressed in an artistic

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work. However striking or original it may be, others are (in the absence of patent
protection) free to express it in works of their own…
II. The other proposition is that certain ideas expressed by a
copyright work may not be protected because, although they are ideas
of a literary, dramatic or artistic nature, they are not original, or so
commonplace as not to form a substantial part of the work. … It is on
this ground that the mere notion of combining stripes and flowers
would not have amounted to a substantial part of the plaintiff ’s work.
At that level of abstraction, the idea, though expressed in the design, would not
have represented sufficient of the author’s skill and labour as to attract copyright
protection. Generally speaking, in cases of artistic copyright, the more abstract
and simple the copied idea, the less likely it is to constitute a substantial part.
Originality, in the sense of the contribution of the author’s skill and labour, tends
to lie in the detail with which the basic idea is presented. … In this case, however,
the elements which the judge found to have been copied went well beyond the
banal and I think that the judge was amply justified in deciding that they formed a
substantial part of the originality of the work.

1. COPYRIGHT DOES NOT SUBSIST IN STYLE

Case-Law:
Norowzian v. Arks Ltd (No. 2) [2000] E.M.L.R. 67
Facts:
The plaintiff Norowzian shot a short film called “Joy” on a building rooftop,
featuring a man dancing to music. Norowzian then edited the film, cutting out
particular sequences, so that the dancer seemed to be doing impossible, almost
surreal, moves. Later, an television advertisement for Guinness ale featured a man
dancing in the same jerky way.
The dance, setting and music were different, but the advertisement (called
“Anticipation”) copied Norowzian’s filming technique and the idea of a man

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seeming to do impossible dance steps. When Norowzian sued the second
film-makers and the Guinness Brewery for copyright infringement, the defendants
claimed they had merely copied the idea of the earlier film, not its expression. The
Court agreed with the defendants and dismissed the action.]
Judgment:
There is a striking similarity between the filming and editing styles and
techniques used by the respective directors of the two films. But no copyright
subsists in mere style or technique. [Counsel for the defendant] instanced the
technique of Pointillism, which was originated by the neo-impressionists Seurat
and Signac. That was a telling example.
If, on seeing La Baignade, Asnières at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in
1884, another artist had used precisely the same technique in painting a scene in
Provence, Seurat would have been unable, by the canons of English copyright law,
to maintain an action against him.
Other examples of original artistic styles or techniques whose imitation in the
production of an entirely different subject matter would not found such an action
might be the “sprung rhythm” of Gerard Manley Hopkins’verse or the thematic
build-up of Sibelius’s second symphony. So here, the subject matter of the two
films being … very different one from the other, the similarities of style and
technique are insufficient to give the claimant a cause of action against the
defendants. • Copyright does not subsist merely in news
Case-Law:
Wainwright Securities Inc. v. Wall St. Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d 91
(U.S. Court of Appeals, 2d Cir. 1977)
Facts:
The plaintiff issued financial reports to subscribers. The defendant
summarized the reports in its own newsletter, crediting the plaintiff as a source.
The court decided that there was no copyright in news but there was in “the
manner of expression, the author’s analysis or interpretation of events, the way he
structures his material and marshals facts, his choice of words, and the emphasis

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he gives to particular developments.” The defendant had copied these elements in
its summaries and had therefore infringed the plaintiff ’s copyright.
Copyright does not subsist in history, historical incidents or facts
Case-Law:
Hoehling v. Universal City Studios Inc., 618 F.2d 97 (U.S.: Court of
Appeals, 2 nd Cir., 1980)
Facts:
Hoehling wrote and published a book in which he theorized that the crash of
the Hindenburg airship in 1936 resulted from sabotage by one Erich Spehl, a crew
member who had placed a bomb on the vessel. The defendant film company, with
knowledge of Hoehling’s book, produced a film which was based on the same
theory and which depicted some of the same incidents as the book. Hoehling’s
claim for copyright infringement, however, failed.]
Judgment:
1. The hypothesis that Eric Spehl destroyed the Hindenburg is based entirely
on the interpretation of historical facts... Such an historical interpretation,
whether or not it originated with Mr. Hoehling, is not protected by his copyright
and can be freely used by subsequent authors.
2. The same reasoning governs Hoehling’s claim that a number of specific
facts, ascertained through his personal research, were copied by appellees. …
[F]actual information is in the public domain. … Each appellee had the right to
“avail himself of the facts contained” in Hoehling’s book and to “use such
information, whether correct or incorrect, in his own literary work.”
3. The remainder of Hoehling’s claimed similarities relate to random
duplications of phrases and sequences of events. For example, all three works
contain a scene in a German beer hall, in which the airship’s crew engages in
revelry prior to the voyage.
4. Other claimed similarities concern common German greetings of the
period, such as “Heil Hitler,” or songs, such as the German National anthem.

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 5. These elements, however, are merely scènes à faire , that is, “incidents,
characters or settings which are as a practical matter indispensable, or at least
standard, in the treatment of a given topic.” … Because it is virtually impossible
to write about a particular historical era or fictional theme without employing
certain “stock” or standard literary devices, we have held that scènes à faire are
not copyrightable as a matter of law.
6. A verbatim reproduction of another work, of course, even in the realm of
nonfiction, is actionable as copyright infringement. … In works devoted to
historical subjects, it is our view that a second author may make significant use
of prior work, so long as he does not bodily appropriate the expression of
another. … This principle is justified by the fundamental policy undergirding
the copyright laws, the encouragement of contributions to recorded knowledge.
… Knowledge is expanded as well by granting new authors of historical works
a relatively free hand to build upon the work of their predecessors.

2 . C O P Y R I G H T D O E S N OT S U B S I S T I N S C I E N T I F I C
PRINCIPLES OR DESCRIPTION OF AN ART
Case-Law:
Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (U.S.: Supreme Court, 1879)
Selden wrote, and registered the copyright for, a book explaining how to apply
the principles of double-entry bookkeeping so that an entire day’s or month’s
operation could be seen at a single glance on a page. The book included some
blank forms demonstrating the principle. Baker produced some forms using the
same principle, but with different headings and differently arranged columns.
Selden’s estate brought an action for copyright infringement against Baker, but
failed.]
Judgment:
The copyright of a work on mathematical science cannot give to the author an
exclusive right to the methods of operation which he propounds, or to the

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diagrams which he employs to explain them, so as to prevent an engineer from
using them whenever occasion requires.
Charles Selden, by his books, explained and described a peculiar system of
book-keeping, and illustrated his method by means of ruled lines and blank
columns, with proper headings on a page, or on successive pages. Now, whilst no
one has a right to print or publish his book, or any material part thereof, as a book
intended to convey instruction in the art, any person may practise and use the art
itself which he has described and illustrated therein.
The use of the art is a totally different thing from a publication of the book
explaining it. The copyright of a book on book-keeping cannot secure the
exclusive right to make, sell, and use account-books prepared upon the plan set
forth in such book. Whether the art might or might not have been patented, is a
question which is not before us. It was not patented, and is open and free to the
use of the public. And, of course, in using the art, the ruled lines and headings of
accounts must necessarily be used as incident to it.
3. COPYRIGHT DOES NOT SUBSIST IN MERE PRINCIPLES OR
SCHEMES
Case-Law:
Borden v. General Motors Corp., 28 F. Supp. 330 (U.S.: District Court, New
York, 1939)
Facts:
The plaintiff owned the copyright in a book called How to Win a Sales
Argument .
In the book were a set of principles of persuasion, namely: “(1) Don’t try to do
all the talking yourself ! (2) Don’t interrupt your opponent! (3) Avoid an
argumentative attitude that is belligerently positive! (4) In the first half of an
argument inquire rather than attack! (5) Restate clearly and fairly in your own
words the gist of each argument your opponent advances – as soon as he advances
it! (6) Identify your main argumentative attack with one key issue. Then stick to
that issue. Don’t digress!”

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 The plaintiff delivered lectures expounding these principles. Representatives
from the defendant attended one of these lectures. The defendant later produced
a training film called Smooth Sale-ing for its car salesmen, showing how they
should apply those principles to sell cars. The plaintiff unsuccessfully claimed that
the film infringed copyright in its book.]
Judgment:
It is difficult to understand how a monopoly right may be secured sufficiently
broad to prohibit others from reproducing in all forms … abstract rules such as
those hereinbefore outlined. If such a contention were sustainable no codes of
conduct, religious, ethical or mental, could be reproduced in any form without the
consent of the authors. … If it were conceded that the postulates, axioms and
theorems of geometry in some distinctive arrangement could be copyrighted as a
literary work, what dramatic rights do they carry?
The six admonitions of the author in respect to persuasion fall within the same
limitation. They express at most general thoughts – not one of them new or
original. They express certain observations of the practical psychologist. As
general principles or ideas or thoughts in themselves they are not the subject of
valid copyright. The most that can be claimed to sustain a copyright would be the
words and their order. … Ideas as such are not protected.
4. COPYRIGHT DOES NOT SUBSIST IN METHODS OF
OPERATION
Case-Law:
Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc., 49 F.3d
807 (U.S.: Court of Appeals, 1 st Cir., 1995), aff ’d (4:4) 116 S. Ct. 804
(U.S.: Supreme Court, 1996)
Facts:
The plaintiff was the copyright owner of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet computer
program. The defendant developed a spreadsheet computer program called
Quattro Pro to compete with the Lotus 1-2-3. It wanted users who have worked
with the Lotus program not to spend time learning new commands for Quattro

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Pro. So the defendant included an optional menu interface for Lotus users. The
computer program that ran this menu was not copied from Lotus. The plaintiff
complained of copyright infringement, relying on a provision in the U.S.
Copyright Act (s. 102) that is almost identical to TRIPs Art. 9.2.]
Judgment:
We think that “method of operation,” refers to the means by which a person
operates something, whether it be a car, a food processor, or a computer. Thus a
text describing how to operate something would not extend copyright protection
to the method of operation itself; other people would be free to employ that
method and to describe it in their own words.
Similarly, if a new method of operation is used rather than described, other
people would still be free to employ or describe that method. We hold that the
Lotus menu command hierarchy is an uncopyrightable “method of operation.”
The Lotus menu command hierarchy provides the means by which users
control and operate Lotus 1-2-3. If users wish to copy material, for example, they
use the “Copy” command. If users wish to print material, they use the “Print”
command. Users must use the command terms to tell the computer what to do.
Without the menu command hierarchy, users would not be able to access and
control, or indeed make use of, Lotus 1-2-3’s functional capabilities.
The Lotus menu command hierarchy does not merely explain and present
Lotus 1-2-3’s functional capabilities to the user; it also serves as the method by
which the program is operated and controlled. … The Lotus menu command
hierarchy is also different from the underlying computer code, because while code
is necessary for the program to work, its precise formulation is not. In other words,
to offer the same capabilities as Lotus 1-2-3, Borland did not have to copy Lotus’s
underlying code (and indeed it did not); to allow users to operate its programs in
substantially the same way, however, Borland had to copy the Lotus menu
command hierarchy. Thus the Lotus 1-2-3 code is not a uncopyrightable “method
of operation.” …
In many ways, the Lotus menu command hierarchy is like the buttons used to
control, say, a video cassette recorder (“VCR”). A VCR is a machine that enables
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one to watch and record video tapes. Users operate VCRs by pressing a series of
buttons that are typically labelled “Record, Play, Reverse, Fast Forward, Pause,
Stop/Eject.” That the buttons are arranged and labeled does not make them a
“literary work,” nor does it make them an “expression” of the abstract “method
of operating” a VCR via a set of labeled buttons. Instead, the buttons are
themselves the “method of operating” the VCR.
5. GENERAL IDEAS, e.g., FOR ENTERTAINMENT, ARE NOT
PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Case-Law:
Green v. Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand [1989] 3
N.Z.L.R. 18 (New Zealand: Judicial Committee of the Privy Council)
Facts:
The plaintiff Green devised the format for a popular British television talent
show, in which he starred, called “Opportunity Knocks”. He sued a New Zealand
television channel which copied the format of the programme for its own talent
show. The plaintiff claimed that he had copyright in the dramatic format of the
show: its title, the use of the catch-phrases “For [name of competitor],
Opportunity Knocks”, “This is your show folks, and I do mean you”, and “Make
your mind up time”, the use of a device called a “clapometer” to measure
audience reaction to competitors’ performances and the use of sponsors to
introduce competitors.]
Judgment:
It is stretching the original use of the word “format” a long way to use it
metaphorically to describe the features of a television series such as a talent, quiz
or game show which is presented in a particular way, with repeated but
unconnected use of set phrases and with the aid of particular accessories. [The
difficulty is to say] that a number of allegedly distinctive features of a television
series can be isolated from the changing material presented in each separate
performance (the acts of the performers in the talent show, the questions and
answers in the quiz show, etc.) and identified as an “original dramatic work”…

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The protection which copyright gives creates a monopoly and “there must be
certainty in the subject-matter of such monopoly in order to avoid injustice to the
rest of the world” … The subject-matter of the copyright claimed for the
“dramatic format” of “Opportunity Knocks” is conspicuously lacking in certainty.
Moreover, … a dramatic work must have sufficient unity to be capable of
performance and that the features claimed as constituting the “format” of a
television show, being unrelated to each other except as accessories to be used in
the presentation of some other dramatic or musical performance, lack that
essential characteristic.
6. IDEAS MAY NEVERTHELESS BE PROTECTED THROUGH
MEANS OTHER THAN COPYRIGHT [Trade Secrets / undisclosed
information]
Case-Law
Fraser v. Thames Television Ltd [1984] 1 Q.B. 44 (U.K.: High Court)
Facts:
A girls’ rock group called “Rock Bottom” and their manager (one Fraser)
developed a partly autobiographical idea for a television series, in which they
would star and which would depict a girls’ rock group, how it was formed, andits
experiences of a rock group. They told Thames Television and gave it an option
to acquire their services if the programme went ahead. Thames eventually made
the series “Rock Follies” with three other actresses, and were sued by “Rock
Bottom” and its manager for wrongful use of the idea entrusted to it.] MR
Judgment:
The basic principles of the law of confidence are as follows:
• There is a broad and developing equitable doctrine that he who has received
information in confidence shall not take unfair advantage of it or profit from the
wrongful use or publication of it.
• He must not make any use of it to the prejudice of him who gave it, without
obtaining his consent or, at any rate, without paying him for it …If, therefore, a

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defendant is proved to have used confidential information, directly or indirectly
obtained from a plaintiff, without his consent, express or implied, he will be
guilty of an infringement of the plaintiff ’s rights.
• It is well settled that the obligation of confidence rests not only on the original
recipient, but also on any person who received the information with knowledge
acquired at the time or subsequently that it was originally given in confidence. …
• Neither the originality nor the quality of an idea is in any way affected by the
form in which it is expressed. No doubt, both the communication and the
content of an oral idea may be more difficult to prove than in the case of a
written idea, but difficulties of proof should not affect the principle any more
than in any other branches of the law where similar problems arise (e.g., contract
and defamation).
• Unquestionably, of course, the idea must have some significant element of
originality not already in the realm of public knowledge. The originality may
consist in a significant twist or slant to a well-known concept. … Novelty in the
industrial field can be derived from the application of human ingenuity to
well-known concepts.
• The court held that Thames were in breach of confidence in using the idea in
the making and screening of the two Rock Follies series, all of which took place
after May 1975. [The court ordered an assessment of damages caused by the
breach to be paid to the plaintiffs.]

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN IDEAS AND

EXPRESSION
1. Author is the person responsible for the work’s expression
2. Taking an idea does not infringe copyright
3. Idea and expression may merge
4. Where does ‘idea’ stop and ‘expression’ start?
1. Author is the person responsible for the work’s expression:

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 Case-Law:
Donoghue v. Allied Newspapers Ltd [1938] Ch. 106 (U.K.: High
Court)
Facts:
Donoghue, a well-known jockey, agreed to give exclusive interviews to the
News of the World newspaper for a series of articles dealing with his horse- racing
career. The newspaper’s journalist, Felstead, wrote up drafts of the articles from
notes he took at the interviews. He showed the drafts to Donoghue and sometimes
changed them as a result of comments Donoghue made. The articles were duly
published, partly as though they were actual dialogues between Donoghue and
Felstead. Felstead later wished to republish the articles in another paper called
Guide and Ideas . The News of the World consented but Donoghue objected,
claiming that he was the author and copyright owner of the interviews. He sued
for an injunction and damages after one of the articles was published against his
wishes.]
Judgment:
There is no copyright in an idea, or in ideas. A person may have a brilliant idea
for a story, or for a picture, or for a play, and one which appears to him to be
original; but if he communicates that idea to an author or an artist or a
playwright, the production which is the result of the communication of the idea to
the author or the artist or the playwright is the copyright of the person who has
clothed the idea in form, whether by means of a picture, a play, or a book, and the
owner of the idea has no rights in that product.
On the other hand, … if an author employs a shorthand writer to take down a
story which the author is composing, word for word, in shorthand, and the
shorthand writer then transcribes it, and the author has it published, the author is
the owner of the copyright and not the shorthand writer. A mere amanuensis does
not, by taking down word for word the language of the author, become in any
sense the owner of the copyright. That is the property of the author. The
explanation of that is this, that that in which copyright exists is the particular form
of language by which the information which is to be conveyed is conveyed. If the
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idea, however original, is nothing more than an idea, and is not put into any form
of words, or any form of expression such as a picture, then there is no such thing
as copyright at all.
It is not until it is … reduced into writing or into some tangible form that there
is any copyright, and the copyright exists in the particular form of language in
which, or in the case of a picture the particular form of the picture by which, the
information or the idea is conveyed to those who are intended to read it or to look
at it. In the present case, the ideas of all these stories, apart altogether from what
one may call merely the embellishments which were undoubtedly supplied wholly
by Mr Felstead – the ideas of all these stories, and in fact the stories themselves,
were supplied by the plaintiff; but in my judgment, upon the evidence it is plain
that the particular form of language by which those stories were conveyed was the
language of Mr Felstead and not of the plaintiff. … [T]he plaintiff was not the
author, or even the joint author, of the articles in the News of the World . If that
be so, it must necessarily follow that he cannot maintain this action.
Points for consideration
1. Fixation:
In the United Kingdom, this decision may be affected today by the new
fixation requirements of the present Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
(U.K.). Section 3(1) of that Act provides that a “’literary work’ means any work,
other than a dramatic or musical work, which is written, spoken or sung.” Section
3(2) provides that copyright does not subsist in the work “unless and until it is
recorded, in writing or otherwise”. Section (3) provides that “it is immaterial for
the purposes of subsection (2) whether the work is recorded by or with the
permission of the author; and where it is not recorded by the author, nothing in
that subsection affects the question whether copyright subsists in the record as
distinct from the work recorded.”
These provisions suggest that an oral speech may be a literary work, although
no copyright arises until it is recorded; but if it is so recorded, even by another, the
maker of the speech will be considered its author and may have a copyright in the
recorded form. Whether the person recording also has a copyright, solely or

19
jointly, may depend on the form of the record, i.e., whether it is written or is
automatically recorded on tape or disk.
2. Joint authors:
The idea/expression dichotomy becomes important in deciding whether
collaborators on a single work are entitled to share in the work’s copyright. If they
have each contributed “expression”, then each counts as an “author”; if one has
merely contributed “ideas”, he does not count as either a sole or joint author of
the work.
A joint author is accordingly a person (1) who collaborates with another author
in the production of a work; (2) who (as an author) provides a significant creative
input; and (3) whose contribution is not distinct from that of the other author. He
must contribute to the ’production’ of the work and create something protected by
copyright which finds its way into the finished work.
Copyright exists, not in ideas, but the written expression of ideas. A joint
author must participate in the writing and share responsibility for the form of
expression in the literary work. He must accordingly do more than contribute
ideas to an author: he must be an author (or creator) of the work in question. It is
not enough that he thought up the plot of a play or made suggestions for a comic
routine to be included …; or indeed that he passed on his reminiscences to a ghost
writer … It is not sufficient that there is established to have been a division of
labour between two parties in the project of writing a book if one alone is entirely
responsible for the skill and labour of authorship of the book…
2. Taking an idea does not infringe copyright
Case-Law:
Bauman v. Fussell [1978] R.P.C. 485 (U.K.: County Court & Court
of Appeal, 1953)
A magazine published a reproduction of a colour photograph that the plaintiff
had taken in Cuba of two cocks fighting. The defendant artist liked the photo,
pinned it on his wall, and painted a picture based on the photo. The painting was
duly sold by an art dealer. The plaintiff sued the defendant for copyright

20
infringement. The action was dismissed by the County Court and the Court of
Appeal.]
Judgment:
The mere taking of an idea would not be an infringement.
A man takes a photograph of a procession or the laying of a foundation stone.
He, of course, has chosen when and from where the photograph should be taken.
The relative position of those in the procession, or their taking part in the
ceremony is not, however, his work, or his design, in the sense in which the relative
position of the figures on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel was the work and design
of Michelangelo. The order and arrangement of the procession has been, no
doubt, carefully planned and designed by someone else. It is an individual’s work
that the Act is intended to protect. At the other end of the photographic scale one
can imagine a case where the photographer has made an original arrangement of
the objects animate and inanimate which he photographs in order to create a
harmonious design representing, for example, Spring. Here the design would be
his work. The position of the birds here is betwixt and between. It is, I think,
nearer to the former than the latter category.
3. Idea and expression may merge
Suppose that A thinks up a new board game. He designs a new board, writes
the rules, and markets the game, which proves a big success. B wants to make a
competing game. He designs a different board but copies the rules. Has he
infringed? Usually, yes. The game is an “idea”; the way in which it is “expressed”
is through the board (an artistic work) and the rules (a literary work). But
sometimes the rules are very simple – so simple that there are just a few ways of
writing them. The “idea” and the “expression” may then be “merged”. If so, B
may even copy the rules without infringing A’s copyright.
Case-Law:
Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble Co., 379 F. 2d 675 (U.S.: Court of
Appeals, 1 st Cir., 1967)
Facts:

21
 The plaintiff claimed copyright in the following rule for a promotional game:
1. Entrants should print name, address and social security number on a boxtop, or
a plain paper. Entries must be accompanied by … boxtop or by plain paper on
which the name … is copied from any source. Official rules are explained on …
packages or leaflets obtained from dealer. If you do not have a social security
number you may use the name and number of any member of your immediate
family living with you. Only the person named on the entry will be deemed an
entrant and may qualify for prize. Use the correct social security number
belonging to the person named on entry … wrong number will be disqualified.
The defendant copied this rule, with very few changes, for its own promotional
contest. The plaintiff ’s copyright action failed.]
Judgment:
When the uncopyrightable subject matter is very narrow, so that “the topic
necessarily requires,” … if not only one form of expression, at best only a limited
number, to permit copyrighting would mean that a party or parties, by
copyrighting a mere handful of forms, could exhaust all possibilities of future use
of the substance. In such circumstances it does not seem accurate to say that any
particular form of expression comes from the subject matter. However, it is
necessary to say that the subject matter would be appropriated by permitting the
copyrighting of its expression. We cannot recognize copyright as a game of chess
in which the public can be checkmated. … Upon examination the matters
embraced in Rule 1 are so straightforward and simple that we find this limiting
principle to be applicable. …[I]n these circumstances, we hold that copyright does
not extend to the subject matter at all, and plaintiff cannot complain even if his
particular expression was deliberately adopted.

4. Where does “idea” stop and “expression” start?

Case-Law:
Plix Products Ltd v. Frank M. Winstone (Merchants) Ltd [1986]
F.S.R. 63 (New Zealand: High Court), affirmed [1986] F.S.R. 608 (New
Zealand: Court of Appeal)
22
 Facts:
Employees of the plaintiff designed standardized plastic packs to contain
kiwifruit. The specifications for this packaging were adopted by the kiwifruit
marketing board. All kiwifruit to be marketed by the board had to be packed
according to these specifications. The defendant orally instructed a designer to
create kiwifruit packs, following the board’s specifications and his own
measurements of kiwifruit. The designer never saw the plaintiff ’s packs. The
plaintiff nevertheless successfully sued for copyright infringement.]
Judgment:
A designer who knows his subject and who is given the idea, or general
concept, of a copyright product (and no more) may well be able, by drawing on
his own skill and independent knowledge, to design a product which may, or may
not, reproduce the form of copyright work. I would regard this as independent
work – not copying. …
This proposition touches on the question of the idea/expression dichotomy,
which is probably the most difficult concept in the law of copyright. … There are
in fact two kinds of “ideas” involved in the making of any work which is
susceptible of being the subject of copyright. In the first place, there is the general
idea or basic concept of the work.
While this “idea” remains as a thought in the author’s mind it is, of course, not
copyright. … The mere act of reducing a general or basic concept of this sort to a
tangible form does not result in a monopoly in the concept… Then there is a
second phase – a second kind of “idea”.
The author of the work will scarcely be able to transform the basic concept
into a concrete form – i.e., “express” the idea – without furnishing it with details
of form and shape. The novelist will think of characters, dialogue, details of plot
and so forth.
There can be no general formula by which to establish the line between the
general idea and the author’s expression of the idea. The basic idea (or concept) is
not necessarily simple – it may be complex. It may be something innovative; or it

23
may be commonplace, utilitarian or banal. The way the author treats the subject,
the forms he uses to express the basic concept, may range from the crude and
simplistic to the ornate, complicated – and involving the collation and application
of a great number of constructive ideas. It is in this area that the author expends
the skill and industry which (even though they may be slight) give the work its
originality and entitle him to copyright.
Anyone is free to use the basic idea – unless, of course, it is a novel invention
which is protected by the grant of a patent. But no one can appropriate the forms
or shapes evolved by the author in the process of giving expression to the basic
idea. So he who seeks to make a product of the same description as that in which
another owns copyright must tread with care.
If he copies the details which properly belong to the expression and not to the
basic concept, he will infringe the copyright. That is why, when the basic idea is
expressed in a crude, or simplistic form, the potential plagiarist or business
competitor can, without offending, come very close to an exact reproduction of
the copyright work. But where the expression is ornate, complex or detailed, then
he must keep his distance: the only product he can then make without infringing
may bear little resemblance to the copyright work.
Case-Law:
Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (U.S.: Court of
Appeals, 2 nd Cir., 1930)
Issue:
The question was whether a motion picture infringed copyright in an earlier
well-known play. Despite the similarity of the plots and the fact that the film
producer knew the plaintiff ’s play, the court found no infringement of copyright.
Judgment:
It is of course essential to any protection of literary property … that the right
cannot be limited literally to the text, else a plagiarist would escape by immaterial
variations.

24
 We do not doubt that two plays may correspond in plot closely enough for
infringement. How far that correspondence must go is another matter. Nor need
we hold that the same may not be true as to the characters, quite independently of
the “plot” proper, though, as far as we know, such a case has never arisen. If
Twelfth Night were copyrighted, it is quite possible that a second comer might so
closely imitate Sir Toby Belch or Malvolio as to infringe, but it would not be
enough that for one of his characters he cast a riotous knight who kept wassail to
the discomfort of the household, or a vain and foppish steward who became
amorous of his mistress. These would be no more than Shakespeare’s “ideas” in
the play, as little capable of monopoly as Einstein’s Doctrine of Relativity, or
Darwin’s theory of the Origin of Species. It follows that the less developed the
characters, the less they can be copyrighted; that is the penalty an author must
bear for marking them too indistinctly.
In the two plays at bar we think both as to incident and character, the
defendant took no more … than the law allowed. The stories are quite different.
… The only matter common to the two is a quarrel between a Jewish and an Irish
father, the marriage of their children, the birth of grandchildren and a
reconciliation. … [The plaintiff ’s] copyright did not cover everything that might
be drawn from her play; its content went to some extent into the public domain.
We have to decide how much, and while we are as aware as any one that the line,
wherever it is drawn, will seem arbitrary, that is no excuse for not drawing it; it is a
question such as courts must answer in nearly all cases. Whatever may be the
difficulties a priori , we have no question on which side of the line this case falls. A
comedy based upon conflicts between Irish and Jews, into which the marriage of
their children enters, is no more susceptible of copyright than the outline of
Romeo and Juliet .
COPYRIGHT PROTECTION ARISES AUTOMATICALLY ON
CREATION OF THE WORK, AND DOES NOT DEPEND UPON
REGISTRATION

25
 Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention provides: The enjoyment and the exercise
of these [authors’] rights shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and
such exercise shall be independent of the existence of protection in the country of
origin of the work. … Many countries, nevertheless, have registration and deposit
requirements for works. Such requirements may provide some evidential
advantages but must, under Berne, be optional and cannot affect the “enjoyment”
or “exercise” of copyright or moral rights.
EXAMPLE:
In Canada, copyrights may be, optionally, registered. Under the Canadian Act
(s. 53), the Register of copyrights is “evidence of the particulars entered in it” and
a certificate of registration “is evidence that copyright subsists in the work and that
the person registered is the owner of the copyright.”
The effect of this provision was considered in the following case:
Case-Law:
Circle Film Enterprises Inc. v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. [1959]
S.C.R. 602 (Canada: Supreme Court)
Facts:
The plaintiff was registered as copyright owner of a film called Golgotha . The
copyright had been transferred a number of times, starting with the author of the
scenario, a French national, and culminating with the plaintiff. The defendant
broadcast the film without the plaintiff ’s consent, but with the consent of another
person claiming the copyright. The plaintiff sued the defendant for infringement,
claiming that it need not produce each assignment to show its title. Instead, it
claimed that that the production of the certificate of registration, naming it as
copyright owner, was enough for it to show its title to sue and recover damages
and an injunction. The defendant disputed the plaintiff ’s title.
Judgment:
Registration … is permissive in character and the subsistence of copyright in
no way depends upon registration, but its proof and proof of ownership are

26
plainly intended to be facilitated by the enactment of [the current s. 53(2) of the
Canadian Act]. …
In a case where there is evidence to contradict the certificate, then its weight
may be affected, but in the absence of any such evidence, its weight is not to be
minimized because no proof of title is required in the application for registration
and because the Copyright Office assumes no responsibility for the truth of the
facts asserted in the application and conducts no independent examination. A
plaintiff who produces this certificate has adduced some evidence in support of his
case, sufficient to compel the tribunal of fact to act in his favour in the absence of
any evidence to contradict it. In my opinion, therefore, by the production of this
certificate and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the plaintiff in this
case has satisfied the burden of proof, both the primary burden – that which rests
upon a plaintiff as a matter of substantive law and is sometimes referred to as the
risk of non-persuasion – and also the secondary burden, that of adducing
evidence. … On this ground … judgment [should be] entered for the plaintiff.
5. ORIGINALITY
Most copyright laws insist that a work be “original” before it qualifies for
copyright protection. “Unoriginal” works do not have copyright. A number of
questions may arise on the meaning of originality:
(a) Is personal creativity required or is it enough that the work
came from the author, was not copied, and involved some judgment,
skill or labour?
(b) Does only a particular sort of judgment, skill or labour qualify,
or will any sort do?
(c) How much work is required: a little or a substantial amount
(and what is meant by “substantial”?). Must the work exhibit some
other quality?
(d) Does the test or standard of originality differ from one class of
work to another? For example, is the same standard required of a

27
business letter or ordinary photograph as is required of a
compilation or computer program?

The United Kingdom and systems of law derived from it (e.g., Australia and
New Zealand) generally require a lower standard of originality (see the University
of London case, below) than European countries and the United States (especially
since the Feist case (below)), which often require some creativity. Sometimes the
same result occurs, whichever test is applied. Other times, the different tests lead
to different results in different jurisdictions.
For example, in the Australian case of Roland Corp. v. Lorenzo & Sons Pty Ltd
(1991) 105 A.L.R. 623, affirmed (1992) 23 I.P.R. 376 (Australia: Full Federal
Court) , two trademarks depicting the letters “R” and “B” were each held to be an
original artistic work having copyright.
The court said:
It seems clear that a mere random collection of letters of the alphabet could
not be copyright and presumably a mere random scribble could not be either, but
the devices with which I am concerned are by no means random and were plainly
drawn with care, to obtain an effect.
Case-Law:
University of London Press Ltd v. University Tutorial Press Ltd
[1916] 2 Ch. 601 (U.K.: High Court)
Facts:
[The plaintiff published a compilation of examination papers of the University
of London, with the consent of the University and the examiners who had set the
papers. The defendant induced some University of London mathematics students
to hand over copies of their exam papers, and published its own compilation,
together with answers and criticism. The plaintiff sued the defendant for
copyright infringement. Under the Copyright Act, only “original” literary works

28
were protected; so the defendant argued that the exam papers lacked originality
and so could be free copied by all. The court rejected this argument.]
Judgment:
The word “original” does not in this connection mean that the work must be
the expression of original or inventive thought. Copyright Acts are not concerned
with the originality of ideas, but with the expression of thought, and, in the case
of “literary work,” with the expression of thought in print or writing. The
originality which is required relates to the expression of the thought. But the Act
does not require that the expression must be in an original or novel form, but that
the work must not be copied from another work B that it should originate from the
author.
In the present case it was not suggested that any of the papers were copied.
[The examiners] proved that they had thought out the questions which they set,
and that they made notes or memoranda for future questions and drew on those
notes for the purposes of questions which they set.
The papers which they prepared originated from themselves, and were, within
the meaning of the Act, original. It was said, however, that they drew upon the
stock of knowledge common to mathematicians, and that the time spent in
producing the questions was small. These cannot be tests for determining whether
copyright exists.
If an author, for purposes of copyright, must not draw on the stock of
knowledge which is common to himself and others who are students of the same
branch of learning, only those historians who discovered fresh historical facts
could acquire copyright for their works.
If time expanded is to be the test, the rapidity of an author like Lord Byron in
producing a short poem might be an impediment in the way of acquiring
copyright, and, the completer his mastery of his subject, the smaller would be the
prospect of the author’s success in maintaining his claim to copyright. … I
suppose that most elementary books on mathematics may be said to be of a
common type, but that fact would not give impunity to a predatory infringer. …

29
[A]fter all, there remains the rough practical test that what is worth copying is
prima facie worth protecting.
Points for consideration:
A serious question after the University of London case is whether anything
much is “unoriginal” after it: does it protect virtually everything
written down?
Case-Law:
Exxon Corp. v. Exxon Insurance Consultants Ltd [1982] Ch. 119
(U.K.: High Court and Court of Appeal),
The oil company Exxon Corp. sued the defendant for passing off and
infringing copyright in the word “Exxon” by using that word as part of its
corporate name. The passing-off claim succeeded and an injunction issued against
the defendant’s use of the word in its name. On the copyright claim, the plaintiff
claimed that the word “Exxon” was “original”: its staff had dreamt up the word
themselves and the corporation had spent much time and money making sure it
was a good word to use all over the world as a trademark and trade name.
If university examiners could get copyright for their “creations”,
why not Exxon?
The English Court of Appeal agreed to a point. One judge said that “Exxon”
was “invented .. after research and testing to find a suitable word, apparently over
a period of more than a year. It is, therefore, difficult, if not impossible to say that
it is not original. It was invented and devised by and originated with the [Exxon
Corporation].”
The Court nevertheless said that the word had no copyright., Lord Justice
Oliver, said: “[O]riginal literary work”, as used in the statute, is a composite
expression, and for my part I do not think that the right way to apply a composite
expression is, or at any rate is necessarily, to ascertain whether a particular subject
matter falls within the meaning of each of the constituent parts, and then to say
that the whole expression is merely the sum total of the constituent parts. In my
judgment it is not necessary, in construing a statutory expression, to take leave of

30
one’s common sense… [T]hat for which protection is sought in the instant case
does not appear to me to have any of the qualities which commonsense would
demand.
The “rough practical test” referred to at the end of the extract from the
University of London case (above), that “what is worth copying is prima facie
worth protecting”, is often cited but not universally admired nor followed.
• Originality must be judged by looking at the work as a whole, not
merely at its component parts
A work may be made up of a number of components. Each component may
itself be original and, if it stood alone, may have copyright. Other components
may not be original. But when one asks whether a whole work has copyright, the
question of originality must be answered by looking at the work as a whole.
Case-Law:
Ladbroke (Football) Ltd v. William Hill (Football) Ltd [1964] 1
W.L.R. 273 (U.K.: House of Lords)
Facts:
The plaintiff devised a popular football betting coupon. The defendant copied
the format and bets from the plaintiff ’s coupon, but gave some bets new names
and worked out the odds independently. The plaintiff sued for copyright
infringement of its work as a compilation. The defendant denied that the
plaintiff ’s work was “original”.]
Judgment:
In deciding … whether a work in the nature of a compilation is
original, it is wrong to start by considering individual parts of it apart
from the whole, as the appellants in their argument sought to do. For many
compilations have nothing original in their parts, yet the sum total of the
compilation may be original. … In such cases the courts have looked to see
whether the compilation of the unoriginal material called for work or skill or
expense. If it did, it is entitled to be considered original and to be protected

31
against those who wish to steal the fruits of the work or skill or expense by copying
it without taking the trouble to compile it themselves. So the protection given by
such copyright is in no sense a monopoly, for it is open to a rival to produce the
same result if he chooses to evolve it by his own labours. …
Thus, directories, catalogues, and the like have been held to be original and to
acquire copyright if the work that goes to their making has been sufficient Where,
however, the work of compilation was not “substantial” but was “negligible” it was
held to have no copyright … The arrangement of the material is one of the
factors to be considered. … So in each case it is a question of degree whether the
labour or skill or ingenuity or expense involved in the compilation is sufficient to
warrant a claim to originality in a compilation.
Applying those principles to the present case, the respondents’ coupon is
entitled to copyright. The respondents have been pioneers in this field and have
invented various bets and nomenclatures, some of which have been adopted by
their rivals. A study of the coupons of twenty-three principal firms engaged in the
fixed odds betting business shows that a large proportion of the bets in the
respondents’ coupon are also offered by their rivals, and much similarity of
language, arrangement and substance will be found in their coupons.
It emerges clearly that the arrangement and contents of the coupon are the
central point of the business – what one witness called the heart of the business.
The coupon must contain an assorted selection of bets that will attract a customer
and induce him to fill up the coupon in preference to rival coupons.
To this end, the respondents have devoted much work and money and
ingenuity. Out of the vast number of bets that can be offered, they select and
devise those which, while being profitable to them, will fill the coupon with the
greatest allure.
The appellants seek to say that this work is preliminary and has been directed
to decisions as to what types of bets the respondents shall pursue in the business;
that such decisions are merely ideas and as such not the subject of copyright; and
that the work of actually writing down those ideas in the coupon is too easy and
negligible to justify any claim to originality. … There may be cases where such a

32
dichotomy might be justified between some preliminary work and the actual
transcription of a compilation, if the work was done with no ultimate intention of
a compilation. But on the facts of the present case such an argument cannot
succeed.
The whole of the respondents’ efforts from the beginning were devoted to
arranging a coupon that would attract punters and be the basis of the
respondents’ business. Types of bets were not considered in vacuo but only in
relation to the part which they would play in the coupon. In my opinion … the
respondents … established copyright in the coupon.
• There may be originality in creating a derivative work from
another work
The question of how far a work that borrows from another work – e.g., a
translation, a three-dimensional copy of a two-dimensional work, or a two-
dimensional copy of a three-dimensional work – is “original” is an important
question. A number of different works of this character are now considered.
Example: A three-dimensional work made from a two- dimensional
work.
Case-Law:
Martin v. Polyplas Manufacturers Ltd [1969] N.Z.L.R. 1046 (New
Zealand: Supreme Court)
Facts:
The plaintiff created some plastic coins from photographs of the coins, with
the consent of the designer of the coins, who owned the copyright in the
photograph. The plaintiff first made a three-dimensional engraving and then
created a die, from which the plastic coins were impressed. The defendant made
plastic coins copied from the plaintiff ’s plastic coins. When the plaintiff sued for
infringement of copyright in the engraving from which his coins were made, the
defendant said that the engraving was not “original”.]

33
 Judgment:
Copyright protection has been given to the published verbatim report of a
speech, a photograph of a picture, a sketch of a piece of machinery, and a
translation of a foreign work. Though each of these is made from existing
subject-matter the medium of expression has been changed. Where the author has
made use of existing subject- matter in this way the question is whether, in
changing the medium, he has himself done sufficient independent labour to justify
copyright protection …
From a visual inspection of the engravings on perspex, and from the plaintiff ’s
detailed description in evidence of his work, the engravings were a work of great
delicacy and intense application. More valuable than my own opinion as to the
artistic skill and exactness required is that of the watchmaker and engraver called
in evidence who described the work as “remarkable” and, more particularly, that
of [the coin designer] who said that the engravings were “very fine pieces of
work” and “very skilful work” of a “high standard”. The independent labour and
skill employed by the plaintiff in working from the photographs of [the designer’s]
designs was such as to entitle him to copyright protection in respect of his
engravings as an original artistic work.
Example: A two-dimensional work of a three-dimensional work.
Case-Law:
SHL Imaging, Inc. v. Artisan House, Inc. 56 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1813 (U.S.:
District Court, S.D. New York, 2000)
Facts:
The plaintiff was hired by the defendant to photograph the defendant’s stock
of mirrored frames and to produce from them colour slides for use by the
defendant’s sales force. Lindner, the owner of the plaintiff company, produced
photos of about 130 different frames and was duly paid. The defendant used
many of the photographs in a catalogue, in brochures, and as publicity shots for
the news media. It also scanned them into a computer for manipulation and
display to customers. The plaintiff, which had not consented to these additional

34
uses, sued for copyright infringement. The defendant claimed the photographs
were not original.
Judgment:
The Supreme Court’s most recent and authoritative pronouncement on
originality is in Feist Publications Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
Inc. … (1991), the Court rejected the proposition that works are protectible so
long as they were born from “sweat of the brow,” reaffirming that “[o]riginality is
a constitutional requirement.” …
The Court also cautioned that it is not difficult to satisfy the originality
requirement; an author need only independently create the work and imbue it
with “some minimum level of creativity,” a “creative spark.” … The “spark need
not provide a shock, but it must at least be perceptible to the touch.” … Judge
Learned Hand observed that “no photograph, however simple, can be unaffected
by the personal influence of the author, and no two will be absolutely alike.” …
There is no uniform test to determine the copyrightability of photographs. …
The technical aspects of photography imbue the medium with almost limitless
creative potential. For instance, the selection of a camera format governs the film
size and ultimately the clarity of the negative. Lenses affect the perspective. Film
can produce an array of visual effects. Selection of a fast shutter speed freezes
motion while a slow speed blurs it. Filters alter color, brightness, focus and
reflection.
Even the strength of the developing solution can alter the grain of the negative.
… Lindner carefully chose to use single light source with a “reflector to fill out the
shadows” in order to “give a chiaroscuro effect that would wrap around the [the
frames] and give [them] depth.” He used this lighting technique because “copy
lighting” would “wash out the shadows and impart a flat look.” Lindner also
employed artistic judgment in determining the amount of shadowing for each
individual frame that would emphasize the detail without obscuring it. Reflections
in the mirrors also complicated the shoot and led to the creation of a “unique light
design on a reflector that would appear in the mirror without showing any part of
the room or [himself] in the mirror.” … Lindner’s works … show artistic judgment

35
and therefore meet the Feist standard. That the photographs were intended solely
for commercial use has no bearing on their protectibility. … [The photographs]
are not entitled to broad copyright protection. Plaintiff cannot prevent others from
photographing the same frames, or using the same lighting techniques and blue
sky reflection in the mirrors. What makes plaintiff ’s photographs original is the
totality of the precise lighting selection, angle of the camera, lens and filter
selection. In sum, plaintiff is granted copyright protection only for its “incremental
contribution.” … Practically, the plaintiff ’s works are only protected from
verbatim copying. However, that is precisely what defendants did.
EXAMPLE 3: A two-dimensional copy of another two- dimensional
work may sometimes not be original.
Merely reprinting a book, without making any changes or any substantial
changes, does not create a copyright in the new edition. For the new edition to
have copyright, there must be enough additional “original” new work done. If the
first work was out of copyright, copyright will exist in the “original” changes, but
the first work without the changes remains out of copyright.
Case-Law:
Hogg v. Toye & Co. Ltd [1935] Ch. 497 (U.K., Court of Appeal)
Facts:
A plaintiff had sued on a reprint, with minor changes, of an earlier book. The
court dismissed her claim, one judge saying: An edition which contains no
substantial alteration and therefore is a mere reprint in substance of an old edition
[is] not entitled … to any copyright whatsoever so far as that edition was
concerned. … [T]here being no originality in the reprint, and no copyright being
obtained under s. 1 [of the Copyright Act 1911 U.K.] in a literary work, unless it
is an original literary work, the plaintiff in the present case [fails.] How this applies
to photographs of two-dimensional work (e.g., another photograph or a painting)
is controversial. Does there have to be a “substantial alteration” between the
second photograph and the work that it copies? Or is it enough – as is the case
with turning a two-dimensional work into a 3- dimensional one or vice versa –
that there is enough judgment, skill and labour in making an exact transposition?
36
The following case adopts the former test: Bridgeman Art Library Ltd v. Corel
Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (U.S.: District Court, S.D. New York, 1999) [The
plaintiff ’s business comprised making photographic transparencies of Old Masters
paintings in the public domain. The defendant copied thousands of the plaintiff ’s
transparencies on to a CD-ROM for public sale. The question was whether the
plaintiff ’s transparencies had copyright under either U.K. or U.S. law. The Court
decided that, under both laws, the plaintiff ’s photographs were not “original” and
thus had no copyright.]
Judgment:
In this case, plaintiff by its own admission has labored to create “slavish copies”
of public domain works of art. While it may be assumed that this required both
skill and effort, there was no spark of originality – indeed, the point of the exercise
was to reproduce the underlying works with absolute fidelity. Copyright is not
available in these circumstances. … [P]laintiff ’s copyright claim would fail even if
the governing law were that of the United Kingdom. … Laddie, a modern British
copyright treatise the author of which now is a distinguished British judge,
discusses the issue at bar in a helpful manner:
It is obvious that although a man may get a copyright by taking a photograph
of some well-known object like Westminster Abbey, he does not get a monopoly in
representing Westminister Abbey as such, any more than an artist would who
painted or drew that building. What, then, is the scope of photographic copyright?
As always with artistic works, this depends on what makes his photograph original.
Under the 1988 Act the author is the person who made the original contribution
and it will be evident that this person need not be he who pressed the trigger, who
might be a mere assistant.
Originality presupposes the exercise of substantial independent skill, labour,
judgment and so forth. For this reason it is submitted that a person who makes a
photograph merely by placing a drawing or painting on the glass of a
photocopying machine and pressing the button gets no copyright at all; but he
might get a copyright if he employed skill and labour in assembling the thing to be

37
photocopied, as where he made a montage. It will be evident that in photography
there is room for originality in three respects.
• First, there may be originality which does not depend on creation of the
scene or object to be photographed or anything remarkable about its capture,
and which resides in such specialties as angle of shot, light and shade, exposure,
effects achieved by means of filters, developing techniques etc: in such manner
does one photograph of Westminster Abbey differ from another, at least
potentially.
• Secondly, there may be creation of the scene or subject to be photographed.
We have already mentioned photo-montage, but a more common instance
would be arrangement or posing of a group . . .
• Thirdly, a person may create a worthwhile photograph by being at the right
place at the right time. Here his merit consists of capturing and recording a
scene unlikely to recur, e.g. a battle between an elephant and a tiger… This
analysis is quite pertinent in this case.
Most photographs are “original” in one if not more of the three respects set
out in the treatise and therefore are copyrightable.
Plaintiff ’s problem here is that it seeks protection for the exception that proves
the rule: photographs of existing two- dimensional articles (in this case works of
art), each of which reproduces the article in the photographic medium as precisely
as technology permits. Its transparencies stand in the same relation to the original
works of art as a photocopy stands to a page of typescript, a doodle, or a
Michelangelo drawing. (Plaintiff concedes that a photocopy is not original and
hence not copyrightable. …) …
Points for consideration:
It is not clear that the court correctly understood or applied the following
passage from the U.K. textbook that it cited, i.e., there may be originality … in
such specialties as angle of shot, light and shade, exposure, effects achieved by
means of filters, developing techniques etc: in such manner does one photograph
of Westminster Abbey differ from another, at least potentially. It is perfectly

38
possible that the U.K. and the U.S. law are different on this point. The Berne
Convention does not dictate either result.
• A translation may be original How much independent labour is
“sufficient” for a translation can also be contentious and can differ
between countries.
• To have copyright, a translation must, like any other work, be original. This is
usually easily established. The reason often given is that a good translator uses at
least as much skill and judgment (although of a different kind) as the author of
the source work. But this reason does not account for the fact that copyright
protects mediocre and botched versions as much as inspired ones, since a work’s
merit does not matter.
• Originality lies, really, in the translator’s mental effort of applying her
acquired or innate proficiency to transform the source work. The proficiency,
though usually linguistic, may lie elsewhere: a medium, who claimed to translate
automatically, without any conscious knowledge of her interlocutor’s source
language, presumably had a skill special enough to give her product originality.
Similarly, an editor may do enough original work in producing another version
of the translation to acquire a copyright, separate from the copyrights in the
source work and the unedited translation, even though the editor does not know
the source language. Some translations produced by computers may,
nevertheless, not qualify …, nor may the literal translation of a few words from
one language to another if it is “a fairly mechanical process requiring little
originality.”
EXAMPLE:
Case-Law:
Signo Trading International Ltd v. Gordon, 535 F. Supp. 362 (U.S.:
District Court, Northern California, 1981)
Facts:
Defendant, a manufacturer of electronic translators, provided Plaintiff with its
list of standard English words and phrases. The word list consists of

39
approximately 850 single words and approximately 45 short phrases, generally two
or three words in length, such as “how are you.” Pursuant to an agreement with
Defendant, Plaintiff translated the English words into the corresponding Arabic
words and then transliterated those Arabic words into Roman letters and phonetic
spellings. Defendant abrogated its business deal with Plaintiff and, without
Plaintiff ’s consent, subsequently sold English-Arabic translators to other customers
using the transliterations compiled by Plaintiff. Plaintiff has registered its copyright
claim to the list of transliterations, and alleges that Defendant has infringed that
copyright.
Judgment:
The question is, ‘whether Plaintiff ’s translations and transliterations
are copyrightable’.
It is inconceivable that anyone could copyright a single word or a commonly
used short phrase, in any language. … It is also inconceivable that a valid
copyright could be obtained for a phonetic spelling, using standard Roman letters,
of such words or phrases. … Although lists of words and translations of larger
works may be copyrightable, Plaintiff cannot claim credit for any of the elements
which make those things copyrightable. For these reasons, Plaintiff does not hold a
valid copyright on the translations or transliterations.
An adaptation may be original Suppose a script is made of a
well-known ancient work such as Homer’s Odyssey and is made into a
film. Is this adaptation of the Odyssey “original”?
Case-Law:
Christoffer v. Poseidon Film Distributors Ltd [2000] E.C.D.R. 487
(U.K.: High Court)
Issue:
The question in essence is whether it originated from the person
who claims to be the author.
Judgment:

40
 Judgment:
There can be no copyright in a well known plot or story, because there is
nothing original about it, even though it may be unconsciously narrated in
different words. In the same way there could be no copyright in the actual story
which the plaintiff recited, since that story was not an original one. The difference
between a copy and an original lies in the treatment of the source material. For
example, a biography is the choosing of elements of the life of the person whose
history is being told. Each author would approach the same facts in a different
way. If one author approaches those facts in the manner in which the previous
author has already approached them, then this would amount to plagiarism. The
ultimate test where a work is copied is whether the author of the source material
and the author of the impugned work could have their works published side by
side without complaint. It is not the language which creates the copyright, it is the
creativity. In general, originality would relate to the story, rather than to the words
in which it is expressed.
Yet reducing words to a language which can be understood by the readers can
be original: so the manner in which the language of the Bible was explained by
[the teacher] can be original. In the present instance, where does the originality
lie? It does not lie in the story. It lies in the way the story has been explained.
Assuming that the language of the child is different it is still the telling of the same
story in the same way. It does not in so doing change the original nature of the
story nor add anything which is original. The child has copied what she has been
told albeit that she has put some or all of it into her own language.
A compilation involving original selection or arrangement may
have copyright
Article 10.2 of TRIPs reads: Compilations of data or other material, whether
in machine readable or other form, which by reason of their selection or
arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as
such. Such protection, which shall not extend to the data or material itself, shall be
without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material itself.
Case-Law:

41
 Feist Publications Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. Inc., 499 U.S.
340 (U.S.: Supreme Court, 1991)
Facts:
Rural compiled a white pages telephone book from information given to it by
subscribers when they applied for a telephone. Rural was obliged by law to
produce such a phone book annually. Feist wanted to publish a telephone
directory for a large region (47,000 listings) that included Rural’s subscribers
(7,700 listings). Feist used about 1,300 of Rural’s listings in defiance of Rural’s
expressed wishes, claiming that Rural’s work was unoriginal.]
Judgment:
This case concerns the interaction of two well-established propositions.
• facts are not copyrightable;
• compilations of facts generally are. …
There is an undeniable tension between these two propositions.
Many compilations consist of nothing but raw data – i.e., wholly factual
information not accompanied by any original written expression. On what basis
may one claim a copyright in such a work?
Common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change
their status when gathered together in one place. Yet copyright law seems to
contemplate that compilations that consist exclusively of facts are potentially
within its scope.
The key to resolving the tension lies in understanding why facts are not
copyrightable.
The sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify for copyright
protection, a work must be original to the author. … Original, as the term is used
in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author
(as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some
minimal degree of creativity. … To be sure, the requisite level ofcreativity is
extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice.

42
 The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some
creative spark, “no matter how crude, humble or obvious” it might be. …
Originality does not signify novelty; a work may be original even though it closely
resembles other works, so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of
copying. To illustrate, assume that two poets, each ignorant of the other, compose
identical poems. Neither work is novel, yet both are original and, hence,
copyrightable.
The distinction is one between creation and discovery: the first person to find
and report a particular fact has not created the fact; he or she has merely
discovered its existence. … Census- takers, for example, do not “create” the
population figures that emerge from their efforts; in a sense, they copy these figures
from the world around them. … Census data therefore do not trigger copyright,
because these data are not “original” in the constitutional sense. … The same is
true of all facts - scientific, historical, biographical, and news of the day. “[T]hey
may not be copyrighted, and are part of the public domain available to every
person.” … Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite
originality.
The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order
to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used
effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as
they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of
creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations
through the copyright laws. … Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no
protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for
copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement. … This
protection is subject to an important limitation.
The mere fact that a work is copyrighted does not mean that every element of
the work may be protected. Originality remains the sine qua non of copyright;
accordingly, copyright protection may extend only to those components of a work
that are original to the author. Thus, if the compilation author clothes facts with
an original collocation of words, he or she may be able to claim a copyright in this
written expression. Others may copy the underlying facts from the publication, but

43
not the precise words used to present them. … Only the compiler’s selection and
arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result is
neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the
progress of science and art.
The Court referred disapprovingly to earlier decisions that protected factual
compilations under a different theory, and continued:] Known alternatively as
“sweat of the brow” or “industrious collection,” the underlying notion was that
copyright was a reward for the hard work that went into compiling facts. … The
“sweat of the brow” doctrine had numerous flaws, the most glaring being that it
extended copyright protection in a compilation beyond selection and arrangement
– the compiler’s original contributions – to the facts themselves. … “Sweat of the
brow” courts thereby eschewed the most fundamental axiom of copyright law –
that no one may copyright facts or ideas. … The definition of “compilation” is
found in §101 of the 1976 Act. It defines a “compilation” in the copyright sense as
“a work formed by the collection and assembly of preexisting materials or of data
that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work,
as a whole, constitutes an original work of authorship.” …
The statute identifies three distinct elements, and requires each to be met for a
work to qualify as a copyrightable compilation:
(1) the collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data;
(2) the selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials; and
(3) the creation, by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or
arrangement, of an “original” work of authorship… The key to the statutory
definition is the second requirement.
It instructs courts that, in determining whether a fact-based work is an original
work of authorship, they should focus on the manner in which the collected facts
have been selected, coordinated, and arranged. This is a straightforward
application of the originality requirement. Facts are never original, so the
compilation author can claim originality, if at all, only in the way the facts are
presented. To that end, the statute dictates that the principal focus should be on

44
whether the selection, coordination, and arrangement are sufficiently original to
merit protection. ..
Did Feist, by taking 1,309 names, towns, and telephone numbers
from Rural’s white pages, copy anything that was “original” to Rural?
Certainly, the raw data does not satisfy the originality requirement. Rural may
have been the first to discover and report the names, towns, and telephone
numbers of its subscribers, but this data does not “ow[e] its origin” to Rural. …
Rather, these bits of information are uncopyrightable facts; they existed before
Rural reported them, and would have continued to exist if Rural had never
published a telephone directory. The originality requirement “rule[s] out
protecting . . . names, addresses, and telephone numbers of which the plaintiff, by
no stretch of the imagination, could be called the author.” … The question that
remains is whether Rural selected, coordinated, or arranged these uncopyrightable
facts in an original way.
The white pages do nothing more than list Rural’s subscribers in alphabetical
order. This arrangement may, technically speaking, owe its origin to Rural; no one
disputes that Rural undertook the task of alphabetizing the names itself. But there
is nothing remotely creative about arranging names alphabetically in a white
pages directory. It is an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so
commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course. … It is not
only unoriginal, it is practically inevitable. This time-honored tradition does not
possess the minimal creative spark required by the Copyright Act and the
Constitution.

WORKS THAT VIOLATE PUBLIC ORDER

Article 17 of the Berne Convention provides that Berne’s provisions do not
affect members’ rights to control, or to prohibit, by legislation or regulation, the
circulation, presentation, or exhibition of any work or production in regard to
which the competent authority may find it necessary to exercise that right. This
provision does not appear to modify what works must be granted copyright under
Berne, Articles 2 and 2 bis . Nevertheless, Article 17 allows governments to take
45
steps to prevent the circulation or exhibition of works that are considered, for
example, offensive to national standards of public policy or morality. Whether
Article 17 allows courts to refuse to enforce copyrights for reasons of public policy,
morality or illegality, or whether courts may exercise such powers under national
law without offending the Berne Convention, is not entirely clear. EXAMPLE 1:
Suppose that an author produces a work in breach of an obligation of secrecy that
he owes his employer. The employer may be able to get an injunction to stop
publication of the work if he finds out early enough; if he does not and the work is
widely published, a court may refuse an injunction because there is no point in
enforcing secrecy on something that is no longer secret. But what is the copyright
status of the work?
Case-Law:
Attorney General v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd [1990] A.C. 109
(U.K., House of Lords)
Facts:
On leaving his job as a British intelligence officer, Peter Wright wrote and
published worldwide a book called Spycatcher about the secret workings of British
intelligence agencies. The publication broke Wright’s contractual obligation of
loyalty to the U.K. Government, as well as the Official Secrets Act 1911 (U.K.).
The U.K. Government sought an injunction against some British newspapers for
participating in Wright’s breach of confidence by publishing, or threatening to
publish, extracts from the book. This order was, however, refused because an
injunction could no longer prevent the publication of secrets that had by then
circulated widely throughout the world.
Judgment:
(1) The U.K. government might be entitled to the copyright in the book, even
though it was written after Wright had left the government’s employ. Should not
an ex-employer own copyright in works written by ex-employees who broke
continuing obligations of secrecy?

46
 (2) If Wright did retain his copyright, neither he nor anybody claiming under it
(e.g., as a licensee or even assignee) could enforce the copyright in a U.K. court
because of his illegal acts.
The courts of the United Kingdom will not enforce copyright claims in
relation to every original literary work. Equitable relief has been refused where the
work contained false statements calculated to deceive the public … and where the
work was of a grossly immoral tendency …
The publication of Spycatcher was against the public interest and was in
breach of the duty of confidence which Peter Wright owed to the Crown. His
action reeked of turpitude. It is in these circumstances inconceivable that a United
Kingdom court would afford to him or his publishers any protection in relation to
any copyright which either of them may possess in the book. That being so,
anyone can copy Spycatcher in whole or in part without fear of effective restraint
by Peter Wright or those claiming to derive title from him. It follows that the
future ability of the Sunday Times to serialise Spycatcher does not derive solely
from their licence. They are free to publish without reference thereto and are thus
for practical purposes in no better position than any other newspaper.
Suppose a State forbids publication of a work before it receives
approval from the state’s censors. Does this affect the copyright?
The most difficult question is to decide whether copyright should
be enforced if the work itself is against public policy, e.g., if its
publication is forbidden under the criminal law relating to obscenity.
British courts may, according to the Guardian Newspapers case
(above), refuse to enforce copyright in such cases.

47