Discussion:
What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? New York
I'm thinking of creating a new product which utilizes mnemonics for
language learning. There are others who have already used mnemonics to
do this. Would it be a copyright violation to use the same mnemonics
that they used?
Lets say a book uses this mnemonic for a spanish word:
Gente (hentea): People
The book suggests the image of people drowning hens in tea.
Could I use the same descriptions of the image in my book?
Answer:
What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? New York
I'm thinking of creating a new product which utilizes mnemonics for
language learning. There are others who have already used mnemonics to
do this. Would it be a copyright violation to use the same mnemonics
that they used?
Lets say a book uses this mnemonic for a spanish word:
Gente (hentea): People
The book suggests the image of people drowning hens in tea.
Could I use the same descriptions of the image in my book? What you describe would likely be copyright infringement.
Answer:
How about if I "reverse engineer" it.
For example, I write down:
hens and tea
Pass it along to a person who has never seen the book, and they create the new expression:
People grinding up hens and making them into tea.
Answer:
How about if I "reverse engineer" it.
For example, I write down:
hens and tea
Pass it along to a person who has never seen the book, and they create the new expression:
People grinding up hens and making them into tea.
**A: personally I prefer green tea.
Answer:
How about if I "reverse engineer" it.
For example, I write down:
hens and tea
Pass it along to a person who has never seen the book, and they create the new expression:
People grinding up hens and making them into tea. If you come up with something entirely on your own, then you can use it, even if someone else has come up with the same thing and copyrighted it already. Copyright only covers copying and it's derivatives -- it doesn't cover independent acts of creativity. That's where copyrights really diverge from patents.
However, in this case, if you gave the person something to work with, even if he hadn't seen it, you had, and therefore you would likely be liable for copyright infringement. Besides, even if you did come up with the exact same thing independently. if you did it once, fine, but if it was a whole book of mnemonics that you came up with "independently," well, you'd probably have a tough time convincing a judge or jury...
Answer:
Thanks divgradcurl,
This is a stretch, but what if it was a painting? Say I saw this painting that looked like waterlillies out of focus. And I told my friend about it. My friend, an artist, was inspired and made his own painting of waterlillies slightly out of focus. Despite using the same elements, aren't these both unique expressions?
Answer:
Here's another idea:
Could it also be argued that the mnemonic phrase, or parts of it have a limited number of ways to express? (similar to a dictionary argument) eg. Hen and tea is the only way to express Gentea. Therefore, the examples of using Hen and Tea would be a unique expression and copyrighted, but creating a new expression using the terms Hen and Tea would not be a violation.
Answer:
Look, you can come up with "what if's" all day, but the reality of the situation is this -- if you create a book that has the same, or largely the same, mnemonics as another book, you might get sued for copyright infringement. If you get sued, it will be up to you to prove that either what they have isn't really copyrightable subject matter in the first place, it is, but the copyright doesn't cover what you are doing, or that you came up with everything on your own independently. How hard each of those might be able to prove will depend on a detailed understanding of all of the specific facts of your situation.
I understand what you are looking for -- you are looking for someone to tell you what is okay, and what isn't okay. The problem is, there just ISN'T anyway anyone can tell you what's okay or not with any certainty without a detailed examination of all of the facts of your situation. Copyright law doesn't have "bright line" rules like, say, a speed limit -- if the speed limit is 65, you know that if you go over 65 your risk a ticket, and you are okay at 65 or under. There are no similar types of rules in copyright law -- the grey areas are very grey, and very wide.