Chris Little wrote:
According to the US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 101: A ''derivative work'' is 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''.NONE of these examples listed by the copyright webpage are like a concordance.
A concordance is a precipitation of facts, not a remolding of a work. In the examples, the works are merely translated, rearranged (what instruments play what parts, etc in a musical score), reproduced (copied), abridged (same text, but shorter), condensed (similar to abridgement; this is not what a concordance does).
A concordance simply does not fit the bill. However, if the NIV people were Evil (TM) enough, they would make up some bogus lawsuit to try to argue that a concordance is a derivative work but the same kind of reasoning Chris just presented; namely, that a concordance can be reverse engineered to produce the original text.
This is such a preposterous argument that any judge that has an I.Q. above 70 is going to throw it out of court. Just because something *could* possibly, maybe, sorta be reverse-engineered, does not mean that it is practical or likely that it will be reverse-engineered. And frankly, i don't think a concordance can be reverse-engineered to produce a text that is more similar to its object than some other, independently copyrighted translations are. For one thing, a concordance does not record the order of each *instance* of a word, and generally, concordances do not contain pronouns, and other mundane words, which make up a large portion of the essential grammatical structure of passages.
In short, the examples listed in the U.S. copyright definition of "derivative work" are there to show us that only works that are basically the same as the original with some recasting count. Works that are *related* to the original work, or that refer to it, are not derivative works; unless of course you have some extremely dishonest and talented lawyers in a courtroom of some senile judges.
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