John Allan wrote on Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:10 +0100....
In article ,
lid says...

Works of architecture (buildings and models of buildings) are defined
in the Copyright etc Act as being a type of artistic work (section 4
(1)(b)). They are protected by copyright as works in their own right,
separately from any plans and blueprints which might exist, and
without the need for registration. I think a fairly ordinary house
would qualify, as long as it was original in the copyright sense, i.e.
not copied from elsewhere.

Not quite. There are a number of tests, basically assessing what might
be called the 'artistic creativity and substance' of the work before it
gets copyright protection.

Just as you can't copyright "The cat sat on the mat", you can't copyright
a mundane piece of architectu it has to have some artistic content.

For most artistic works, copyright subsists irrespective of artistic
quality. However, you are right that works of architecture are an
exception to this rule. CDPA 1988 section 4(1).

So yes, an entirely mundane house design might not qualify. But it
probably wouldn't take much artistic merit for a court to decide that
copyright subsists. The question, surely, would be about whether
there is any artistic quality at all, not about the level of that
artistic quality.

The reason why there's no copyright in "The cat sat on the mat" is
slightly different, I think. It's because a simple phrase like "The
cat sat on the mat" is not sufficiently substantial to be considered
an original work.

Translating this to non-architectural artistic works, if you make a
sketch which simply consists of a single straight line on a piece of
paper, I imagine that would be unlikely to get any copyright
protection. But the reason wouldn't be because of lack of artistic
quality; artistic quality is irrelevant in the case of a sketch. It
would be for lack of substance, meaning that you've not created
anything original.

However, I don't think you can deny the substantiality of a house.
You only have to look at it! And it will then be original as long as
it's not copied slavishly from another house.

However, unlike other artistic works, you can indeed debate the
artistic quality of the house, e.g. by pointing out that while the
design is original (not copied from elsewhere), it is entirely
mundane. Subject to my point above that it probably wouldn't require
much artistic quality to overcome such an objection.

[snip]

Taking a photo of it would then be likely
to infringe,

Taking a picture, whether a photograph or a sketch or a painting or
whatever of a thing that is subject to copyright is not 'copying' it.

See CDPA 1988, section 17:

quote

17.-(1) The copying of the work is an act restricted by the copyright
in every description of copyright work; and references in this Part to
copying and copies shall be construed as follows.

(2) Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic
work means reproducing the work in any material form.
[...]

(3) In relation to an artistic work copying includes the making of a
copy in three dimensions of a two-dimensional work and the making of a
copy in two dimensions of a three-dimensional work.

end quote

"Artistic work" here does include works of architecture. Taking a
photo or making a sketch or painting of a building is clearly making a
two-dimensional copy of the three-dimensional original, in another
material form.

What prevents the photo or sketch or painting infringing copyright is
section 62, as I said previously. If a photo or sketch or painting
weren't a copy, then section 62 would be redundant.

Consider taking a photo of a printed page but such that the text was
indecipherable.

But presumably the estate agent's photo of the house wouldn't be
indecipherable. If it was, it wouldn't achieve the object of helping
to sell the house!

--
Tim Jackson
lid
(Change '.invalid' to '.co.uk' to reply direct)
Absurd patents: visit http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk

In article ,
lid says...
John Allan wrote on Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:10 +0100....
In article ,
lid says...

Works of architecture (buildings and models of buildings) are defined
in the Copyright etc Act as being a type of artistic work (section 4
(1)(b)). They are protected by copyright as works in their own right,
separately from any plans and blueprints which might exist, and
without the need for registration. I think a fairly ordinary house
would qualify, as long as it was original in the copyright sense, i.e.
not copied from elsewhere.

Not quite. There are a number of tests, basically assessing what might
be called the 'artistic creativity and substance' of the work before it
gets copyright protection.

Just as you can't copyright "The cat sat on the mat", you can't copyright
a mundane piece of architectu it has to have some artistic content.

For most artistic works, copyright subsists irrespective of artistic
quality. However, you are right that works of architecture are an
exception to this rule. CDPA 1988 section 4(1).

So yes, an entirely mundane house design might not qualify. But it
probably wouldn't take much artistic merit for a court to decide that
copyright subsists. The question, surely, would be about whether
there is any artistic quality at all, not about the level of that
artistic quality.

A building is a mixture of the mundane and the artistic. I suggest you
get the All ER and read the Meikle v Maufe judgement I cited.


snip

John

"Tim Jackson" wrote
The reason why there's no copyright in "The cat sat
on the mat" is slightly different, I think. It's because
a simple phrase like "The cat sat on the mat" is not
sufficiently substantial to be considered an original work.

Translating this to non-architectural artistic works, if you
make a sketch which simply consists of a single straight
line on a piece of paper, I imagine that would be unlikely
to get any copyright protection. But the reason wouldn't
be because of lack of artistic quality; artistic quality is
irrelevant in the case of a sketch. It would be for lack of
substance, meaning that you've not created anything original.

In that case, how did that "composer" manage to get copyright on 'x' minutes
of *silence* ? [I can't remember how many minutes it was.]

The other "composer" who came along later and "wrote" a shorter piece of
silence, was taken to court for copyright infringement ...

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 15:40:06 +0100, "Tim" wrote:

"Tim Jackson" wrote
The reason why there's no copyright in "The cat sat
on the mat" is slightly different, I think. It's because
a simple phrase like "The cat sat on the mat" is not
sufficiently substantial to be considered an original work.

Translating this to non-architectural artistic works, if you
make a sketch which simply consists of a single straight
line on a piece of paper, I imagine that would be unlikely
to get any copyright protection. But the reason wouldn't
be because of lack of artistic quality; artistic quality is
irrelevant in the case of a sketch. It would be for lack of
substance, meaning that you've not created anything original.

In that case, how did that "composer" manage to get copyright on 'x' minutes
of *silence* ? [I can't remember how many minutes it was.]

4'33". It isn't actually silence: AIUI the point of the piece is that
the audience is listening to non-intentional sounds, including that of
other members of the audience asking what's going on and walking out.

http://www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm

The other "composer" who came along later and "wrote" a shorter piece of
silence, was taken to court for copyright infringement ...

Can you copyright a concept of this kind? Perhaps I shouldn't mention
that I've taken part in a choral adaption of the piece?

--
Jo Lonergan

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 15:40:06 +0100, "Tim" wrote:

"Tim Jackson" wrote
The reason why there's no copyright in "The cat sat
on the mat" is slightly different, I think. It's because
a simple phrase like "The cat sat on the mat" is not
sufficiently substantial to be considered an original work.

Translating this to non-architectural artistic works, if you
make a sketch which simply consists of a single straight
line on a piece of paper, I imagine that would be unlikely
to get any copyright protection. But the reason wouldn't
be because of lack of artistic quality; artistic quality is
irrelevant in the case of a sketch. It would be for lack of
substance, meaning that you've not created anything original.

In that case, how did that "composer" manage to get copyright on 'x' minutes
of *silence* ? [I can't remember how many minutes it was.]

John Cage 4'33". Its not actually silence, thats really the whole
point. The piece was written for piano (no notes played) but the
pianist comes out and does all the things the pianist does before
sitting in front of the piano and playing nothing. The point of the
piece is actually the ambient noise that happens around a concert hall
of x hundred people all watching a pianist not playing. As a result,
the silence is different every time its played :-)

It's also been rescored for clarinet and for orchestra :-)

The other "composer" who came along later and "wrote" a shorter piece of
silence, was taken to court for copyright infringement ...

Mike Batt. He wanted to create a gap on his CD between a couple of
tracks, and for a laugh, decided to give the gap a title (I can't
remember how many minutes it was) and list it as a separate track on
the CD track listing. His error was to credit this track to "Mike Batt
& John Cage", which resulted in the Cage Foundation, who own the
copyright on Cage's works, pursuing Batt for royalties. It was
eventually settled out of court for, IIRC, a £100,000 charitable
donation

Brian

What

"bigbrian" wrote
The piece was written for piano (no notes played)
...
It's also been rescored for clarinet and for orchestra :-)

Do those one's sound any different? ;-)

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 17:30:10 +0100, Jo Lonergan
wrote:

4'33". It isn't actually silence: AIUI the point of the piece is that
the audience is listening to non-intentional sounds, including that of
other members of the audience asking what's going on and walking out.

http://www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm

The other "composer" who came along later and "wrote" a shorter piece of
silence, was taken to court for copyright infringement ...

Can you copyright a concept of this kind? Perhaps I shouldn't mention
that I've taken part in a choral adaption of the piece?

Would you have refused to perform if you had a sore throat?

(Slightly) more seriously, did the conductor have a stopwatch or did
he count the bars?

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 19:50:07 +0100, "Tim" wrote:

"bigbrian" wrote
The piece was written for piano (no notes played)
...
It's also been rescored for clarinet and for orchestra :-)

Do those one's sound any different? ;-)

Obviously.....otherwise, what would be the point? :-)

Brian

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 21:55:05 +0100, IanAl wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 17:30:10 +0100, Jo Lonergan
wrote:

4'33". It isn't actually silence: AIUI the point of the piece is that
the audience is listening to non-intentional sounds, including that of
other members of the audience asking what's going on and walking out.

http://www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm

The other "composer" who came along later and "wrote" a shorter piece of
silence, was taken to court for copyright infringement ...

Can you copyright a concept of this kind? Perhaps I shouldn't mention
that I've taken part in a choral adaption of the piece?

Would you have refused to perform if you had a sore throat?

No, but I would have had the stage manager make a short announcement
begging the audience's indulgence for the second alto from the left,
with the hidden message that I was being frightfully brave to soldier
on for the sake of my public.

(Slightly) more seriously, did the conductor have a stopwatch or did
he count the bars?

I do remember her turning over pages, though it can't really have been
a score as we did it for fun at very short notice. I've often seen
her setting a tempo (as in chrochet = 65) from memory, which impresses
me immensely, so presumably a pro could time a piece simply by
counting bars.

Re Copyright: I've often wondered how companies which publish music by
long-dead composers, often quite obviously in reprints which date from
the beginning of the last century without a note changed, can still
claim copyright in them.

--
Jo Lonergan

Jo Lonergan wrote on Sat, 17 Jul 2004 10:20:07 +0100....
Re Copyright: I've often wondered how companies which publish music by
long-dead composers, often quite obviously in reprints which date from
the beginning of the last century without a note changed, can still
claim copyright in them.

There is copyright in the typographical arrangement of the newly
published edition, which is separate from the copyright in the musical
work itself. However, this wouldn't apply if the new edition was
nothing more than just a facsimile of the old one.

Commonly some things would be changed in the new edition, though, even
if only in the publisher's annotations at the beginning or end. The
new copyright would then be limited to what had changed, and not to
the parts that merely reproduced the typographical arrangement of the
previous edition.

--
Tim Jackson
lid
(Change '.invalid' to '.co.uk' to reply direct)
Absurd patents: visit http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk