Forwarded by Negativland.
>There are copyright requirements of creativity and originality. These have
>been
>tested in regard to most types of copyrights ( music, plays, sculpture, etc.,)
>and sometimes produces strange court decisions. For example, that bass
>lines are
>not copyrightable. However, no one has tested the threshhold for sound
>recordings
>to any great degree, to my knowledge.
>
>For example, suppose I steal a drums and bass recording, get sued and
>defend on
>the grounds that they are not sufficiently creative or original, arguing
>that if
>a bass line is not copyrightable, that a drum beat is most certainly not,
>so the
>combination is therefore not protectable. Music without harmony and melody
>is not
>copyrightable. You don't think I couldn't convince some federal judges of
>that?
>
>How about sound effects records? Should a recording of a trash can be
>copyrightable? How about a recording of a fart?
>
>It is never been the law that anything and everything is copyrightable.
>There is
>a threshold. It might be low, but it is there.
Leflaw
>
>"Krimm, Dan" wrote:
>
>> Well, okay, but that speaks to a sort of "critical mass" issue for what
>> qualifies as a *work* of art. Not what qualifies as a work of *art* - if
>> you get my meaning in the shift of emphasis...
>>
>> That is, it's a sort of content-magnitude threshold, not an
>> artistic/creative-quality threshold. Maybe there are issues with how
>> derivative a work can be before it infringes, but that's not what I thought
>> you were talking about. I thought you were saying, some "art" just sucks so
>> badly it doesn't deserve to get a copyright, even if it is long enough and
>> unique enough and non-duplicating enough to be considered an individual work
>> (if not an "intellectual work" or "artistic work" - do we have laws for
>> "stupid works" or "mediocre works"? - no, they are covered under the same
>> domain, right?).
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: leflaw [mailto:leflawATleflaw.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 5:09 AM
>> To: Dan Krimm; phoATonehouse.com
>> Subject: Re: pho: "threshold" for copyright??
>>
>> I will get you some case law and "Nimmer" quotes, but the issue is seldom
>> tested. There was one old case that said that a bass line, believe it or
>> not, was not copyrightable, and rearranging public domain material without
>> adding sufficient creativity is not copyrightable.
>>
>> Just because an examiner at the PTO gives out a certificate doesn't mean
>> that it will survive in court. It is a presumption only.
>>
>> The issue comes up more often in cases involving data, like Westlaw v.
>> Lexis.
>>
>> Dan Krimm wrote:
>>
>> > At 08:59 PM 02/26/2001 , leflaw wrote:
>> > >There is an artistic and creative threshold that a work must reach in
>> order
>> > >to be
>> > >copyrighted. What makes you think that the shit the RIAA puts out would
>> even
>> > >survive this test? What evidence do you have that you are indeed worthy
>> of
>> > >this
>> > >wonderful protection that you think, in your blind arrogance, is your
>> > >birthright?
>> > >In other words, just what the hell do you know about art?
>> >
>> > Larry,
>> >
>> > I haven't followed much of the thread that this came from, but this
>> statement from both a music lawyer and a working musician really puzzles me.
>> Are you being sarcastic? You know as well as anyone that any composition
>> and/or recording is automatically covered by current copyright law from the
>> moment of creation. And, for 20 bucks it can be registered with the
>> Register of Copyrights without even being published. You don't have to be a
>> lawyer to do this, just a citizen (or maybe only a resident) of the US.
>> It's actually pretty easy - you can download the registration forms as PDFs
>> from the CO web site.
>> >
>> > I've got a bunch of mediocre early work registered with the Copyright
>> Office, and some pretty good later work as well, all of it registered by me,
>> myself, directly.
>> >
>> > Art doesn't have to "deserve" to have copyrights, it just has to exist.
>> And the problem with deciding who might deserve this right is that the
>> judgments can hardly avoid a healthy dose of arbitrariness - the very
>> "legitimizing" factor that excludes so many "deserving" artists from the
>> marketplace in the first place. I think this must have been clear to the
>> writers of copyright law in the US, because they explicitly excluded any
>> judgment of artistic value from the system (I guess they figured the
>> marketplace would measure that value in the form of economic value - and of
>> course that in conjunction with the mass media structure of promotion and
>> distribution has perverted the culture of music increasingly in recent
>> years, but I digress).
>> >
>> > I'm not going to try to analyze or defend Karen in any detail, but
>> whatever logic led you to this statement must have been convoluted indeed.
>> I must be missing something here...
>> >
>> > Dan
>> >
>> >
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