Talk:Derivative work

COPYRIGHT VIOLATION?

Does the picture used as an example violate copyright law?

VMG - 24OCT2007

Minor change

Should this page read "renting the prints was a copyright infringement". The word "renting" seems out of place. Was this perhaps supposed to be "releasing the prints was a copyright infringement"?

MP 02:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Article needs work

Half the links are bad, article overall does not read very well. Perhaps I'll get around to it, but maybe someone else who's knowledgeable wants to jump in and fix it? I'm going to put a cleanup broilerplate on the article.

What generally constitutes the building blocks of "non-trivial" copyrighted material, and thus a derivative work, is a question that keeps many copyright lawyers in steady employment.

That line is not really appropriate. --Josh3736 05:56, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup

I added the cleanup tag mostly because the first tag was removed with no explanation by an anon, but also because the article needs cleanup. Copyright lawyers, please step in. Deltabeignet 23:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

article clears some minor things up but also confuses me more

so ... is sampling of copyrighted songs legal or not? --Nerd42 19:12, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the sampling; depends also on what you're using it for. Sampling for commercial use probably falls under the rights expressed by the property owner; that could be the artists or the record company. Probably want to look up Trademark Dilution as a side reference. 206.21.11.205 14:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

fan-fiction?...

Related Terms and alternative definitions

I think we need links to terms like aggregated works and fair use

Is this definition compatible with the this article? -

DERIVATIVE WORK - A work based upon one or more preexisting works, 
such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, 
fictionalization,motion picture version, sound recording, 
art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or 
any other form in which a work may be recast, 
transformed, or adapted. 
A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, 
or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work 
of authorship, is a 'derivative work'. 17 U.S.C.

Kctucker 09:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Counterexamples

Expanding on Nerd42's and Kctucker's points, I would like to see more discussion of what does not qualify as a derivative work. I think the article needs clarification of the boundaries, which are now neglected, except some weak counterexamples with software (drivers, libraries). This article has virtually nothing to refute, for example, the claim that any book in English is a derivative work of Merriam Webster's Dictionary. Such a notion is obviously absurd, but I'd like some guidance on supporting less obvious claims. Isn't there a legal distinction between copyrighting content versus presentation? Facts versus phrasings? "You can't copyright facts" rings in my head. What's the bigger story?

I have made works about HTML at http://www.visibone.com/html/. I used and refered to HTML specifications at http://www.w3.org/html/. I typed and positioned all content from scratch, no phrases or diagrams are clones of those in the specs, yet the influence on content is clear. How is my work not derived from those specifications? I realize the edges must be very fuzzy, but certainly there is precedent for at least coarsely locating it.

Defining (or linking to) "fair use" helps, but I don't think it's complete to say "fair use" covers everything allowed and "derivative work" everything not.

(Incidentally I'm not concerned in my own case about my old HTML reference, more about an upcoming PHP reference.)

Bob Stein - VisiBone 13:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Substantial Edits on December 22, 2007

I am attempting to revamp this article for clarity and usefulness. I hope I have addressed some of the previously stated concerns about this article. I've made some quite substantial edits that I hope they improve the article.

the changes made

The article was first of all quite sloppy, with numerous statements about derivative works that were not in context and did not create a cohesive picture of what a derivative work is. Many of these statements were also either not cited or were not cited in an appropriate format. I apologize to anyone whose contribution was deleted, but much of what previously existed would take too long to format into the cohesive description of derivative works I am trying to build. I've cleaned up the section on U.S. law and tried to categorize it into conceptual chunks that make sense. I've added subheadings to try and better delineate these categories.

There were also concerns that the article did not deal appropriately with the fair use doctrine, which is actually quite important in understanding the limits of the derivative work right. I added a section on fair use and linked to the fair use article.

I also changed the word "artistic" to "expressive" in the opening line of the article. I made this change to indicate that derivative works can include non-artistic works such things as computer programs or telephone directories, while still articulating the fact that copyright protection only extends to expressive works.

Finally, I added more statutory background. Knowing the statutory background is helpful in understanding copyright law, as it is a field that relies heavily on a statutory basis. Hopefully this change provides relevant law while maintaining a level of readability that is accessible to non-lawyers.

what still needs be done

The changes I made do not address the central concern that this article is U.S.-centric. Unfortunately, my understanding of international IP is extremely limited. In addition, the need for more and better examples, including counter-examples, still exists.