On January 18, 2003 04:15, Chris Little wrote: <snip> > A concordance is the quotation of an entire work. It doesn't matter how > you re-order it or in what manner you change the text, it is still > derived. Furthermore, the examples given are specifically of types of > derivative works that are eligible for copyright. Since a concordance is > non-creative, it is not eligible for copyright on this basis. It is > nonetheless a derivative work.
I don't agree that a concordance is a quotation of the entire work. Some concordances have that. For example, my printed NIV concordance, like most, contains a short section of each verse for each occurance. In that case, I clearly would be in violation of the copyright. But I could just as easily produce something like this: AND: Gen 1:1, Gen 1:2, etc. and so on for each word. In that case I am not quoting anything. I should have been more clear as to which I was refering to in my origianl question. I realize this is probably a fuzzy area in the law. For example, I'm sure if I created a list of word counts in the NIV, the IBS couldn't claim that as being covered by their copyright but on the other hand a digital concordance/index with word order and punctuation info could be seen as just a simple compression mechanism for the copyrighted text. > If you make B out of A, then B is a derivative of A. If you make a > concordance of the NIV, it necessarily requires use of the NIV--that is > words themselves--so it is a derivative. If you took an ASCII text of the > NIV, gzipped it, uuencoded it, fed the result to a printer, and bound the > printed papers without telling anyone what it really was, it would STILL > be a derivative work. > > > 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. > > Actual ability to reproduce the original is irrelevent, but of some > importance is the fact that a lot of information from the source text is > being copied, without license, into the derivative. It is enough to glean > a lot of details about how the NIV translates certain words without > needing an NIV. For example, if you know that a certain word in a certain > verse is by some translations rendered "love" and by others "like", you > could easily do a search on that verse to retrieve all words it contains. > By investigating that list for the words "love", "like", and similar, you > can probably figure out how the NIV renders that particular word. > > > 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. > > Being "[b]asically the same as the original" isn't necessary. A painting > based on a scene from a novel isn't even remotely similar to the > expression in the novel, but it's a derivative work. Works that cite an > original work are not derivative, but that's not what concordances do. > Concordances quote the entire work. I don't understand your example. I doubt that doing a painting of a scene in a book is a copyright violation. Consider all of the people who make money by painting scenes from the Lord of the Rings. > But, hey, don't believe me. Call UBS; ask them if they would consider it > a derivative work. Hire a copyright lawyer; ask him if it would legally > be considered a derivative work. > > --Chris > > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
