On 2006-09-17, Alfred M. Szmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm not sure what you mean by "presented", but M-W has a copyright > on its particular entry for "hello". The above from your CED is too > short to be creative, so it's not copyrighted. But I would not call > M-W's text a "presentation". > > What if my CED contains "over 30,000 entries" like that? Would that > in your opinion be copyrightable? I don't think it would.
Size doesn't matter. A haiku is only 3 lines yet covered by copyright. A phonebook of the entire USA probably weighs more than I do but is not covered. The only criterion the law has is whether you were original and creative in your expression. Did you write a purely factional, straightforward definition that anyone would give, or did you think about it and apply your own unique view to give the definition? For example, a straightforward definition of "hello" would probably say "casual greeting or expression of surprise". But to make a definition that also covers the somewhat-angry "hellooooo!" takes a bit more work. And you'd probably write that differently than I would, so we both get a copyright on our definitions. Well, if you want to call the OED and M-W a "word encyclopedia" and not a dictionary, I guess we are on the same page. OED entries are copyrighted, the short phrases from a "simple dictionary" are not. Merijn -- Remove +nospam to reply _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
