Stefano Zacchiroli <lea...@debian.org> writes: > 2) what I'm proposing is in essence the second part of the first choice > in your dichotomy, i.e. extend interpretation of DFSG ยง4 to other > distinguishing marks (I notice that you mention sounds, but I do not > think they are in the realm of trademark protection; although I > haven't checked)
Sounds can be trademarked if they perform the function of a trademark (uniquely identifying a company or product), but the rules around them vary tremendously between jurisdictions. According to Wikipedia (so more investigation would be required for full reliability), the EU restricts trademarks to things that can be represented graphically, so only sounds that can be written in, for example, musical notation could be trademarked. The US applies a different strict test and has allowed trademarking of, for example, the lion's roar used by MGM in introducing their movies, but Harley Davison was not able to trademark the sound of their motorcycle engines. > IANAL, but AFAIR fact *collections* might be under some circumstances. Yes, it depends on how much creative editorial judgement was applied. In the US, it's well-settled case law that phone books cannot be copyrighted, since they are comprehensive and hence have no creative editorial judgement, but cookbooks can be copyrighted because they do involve creative editorial judgement. (Individual recipes cannot be copyrighted because they are facts.) -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87eht975e3....@windlord.stanford.edu
