What Counts As An Idea?
What Counts As An Idea?
What Counts As An Idea?
Last edited by keith_12345 on Sat Aug 17, 2019 9:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Hi Keith,
It is the part of a potentially copyright work which resides inside the author's head before he expresses it in words or music or a photograph or painting etc. Only the means - the words, the paint colours, or the notes - by which the author chooses to express the idea, gains the copyright protection. They form his creative expression and so long as he has not copied the expression from someone else, it will be protected even though the underlying idea is fundamentally the same as another person's. No one who now writes the words 'to be or not to be.. ' can claim they just created them, because they are William Shakespeare's expression of the underlying idea of doubt.
It is the part of a potentially copyright work which resides inside the author's head before he expresses it in words or music or a photograph or painting etc. Only the means - the words, the paint colours, or the notes - by which the author chooses to express the idea, gains the copyright protection. They form his creative expression and so long as he has not copied the expression from someone else, it will be protected even though the underlying idea is fundamentally the same as another person's. No one who now writes the words 'to be or not to be.. ' can claim they just created them, because they are William Shakespeare's expression of the underlying idea of doubt.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007