<<"Trivial" apparently meaning "through the use of a time machine." In
order for you to make a claim to sourcing a term to the public domain,
it has to be the *pre-existing* public domain; >>
No items without copyright are in the public domain. If something can't be copyrighted then it's not owned in any traditional sense. If I discover a brand new fact that nobody new, and it's still a fact, then it's in the public domain and can't be per se copyrighted.
If the original PI item has no copyright protections on it (like a single name, a concept, a pose, a theme, etc.) then anyone at any time can choose to write it down in a story. If the only requirement is that I point to another source, well, there it is.
Just 'cause you write something down before my friend doesn't mean you own a copyright on every item in there. You only own a copyright on the parts that can be copyrighted. The parts that can't be copyrighted are available for anyone to use. And if Ryan is simply saying that I need to find it in the public domain, then fine. If it's uncopyrightable then it is ALWAYS in the public domain. Nobody can claim a copyright on it.
<<
his one-paragraph story *before* the book with that same name PI'd>
comes out. Otherwise the hypothetical judge in the hypothetical case
is likely to laugh in your face as he rules against you.
>
On what grounds? The issue that the uncopyrightable item declared as PI has been used in another source where it is also uncopyrightable and I derived from the second uncopyrightable source something that is still uncopyrightable?
If the basis for sourcing something in from elsewhere is that it be freely available to all, and unowned, and not in the OGL'd source, then no time machine is required.
Lee
