On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 02:00:08PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > I think we can agree that a word list is a "compilation" of things, so we > can apply the definition of "compilation" under Title 17, Section 101 of > the United States Code:
I'm not so sure. What exactly are the preexisting materials that are used to make a wordlist? It would be possible to make a compilation wordlist, but I disagree that a wordlist is inherently a compilation work. For example: a dictionary could be a non-compilation work if it's prepared from scratch (ie, Webster's 1913 would probably fit here) or it could be a compilation work if it includes definitions from several other sources (Wordnet, gcide). > Now, let's check Section 102: > > (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of > authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method > of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the > form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied > in such work. This is basically excluding patents from copyright law. I don't see its relevance here. > So, even if a person tries to assert copyright in a word list, one can > create an alternative word list of equal or greater utility by simply > extracting terms from any of several publicly-licensed dictionaries, Well, the "equal or greater utility" has yet to be seen :-) > The copyright in those dictionaries -- themselves copyrighted works at > some point -- resides in the definitions, not the defined words > themselves, at least insofar as anything calling itself a "dictionary" > purports to define words that are *actually already in use*. This Most works are probably made up of words that are actually already in use. It seems far-fetched to claim that there is a special exclusion in copyright law pertaining to words in dictionaries. > By this argument, an arrangement of unoriginal words cannot be > copyrightable when it purports to be ordered according to a certain > idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, > principle, or discovery. I believe that the section in question states that the idea, procedure, etc. itself is not copyrightable, but the specific text used to describe it is. > If there is any process by which we can create a superset of the > supposedly-copyrighted word list and subsequently prune it down to a > duplicate, then that word list is provably non-original. This too seems weak to me -- could you not create a process to form the text of a novel by using the original to pick out ordered words from a comprehensive master word list? I'd like to say that I hope that it is the case that these are un-copyrightable, but as of yet your arguments based on law don't seem convincing. -- John _______________________________________________ Aspell-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/aspell-devel
