>
> Tim,
> As I stated, I don't have the citation.  This was either through
> AAM or the ALI-ABA course Current Issues in Museum Administration
> that was held in Portland, Oregon.  The case involved a
> photographer who photographed a work of art at a museum (perhaps
> for the museum) and then sought to assert copyright over the
> photograph. The photograph was to show the work of art
> accurately, not to dramatically light it in a way that altered
> the intellectual property which is what we are talking about here.
>
> It rather follows the thought that if you have a webpage about
> something like perhaps your dogs that states their pedigrees and
> accomplishments, someone else can use your format and insert
> their information such as the names of their dogs, their
> pedigrees and accomplishments because all dogs have lineages
> (although they may be unknown) and accomplishments (perhaps just
> couch potato) and a format for this information is particularly
> limited.  Copyright on this would be a bit like trademarking
> "Asparagus" for a product.

Without doing some more research on it, I think that you need to be very
careful in that this is fairly incorrect. I believe you are referring to one
specific case (which I seem unable to find) with very specific
circumstances. But that overall, the general principles of copyright apply.
As already stated, copyright is in regards to a "creator" and not
"creativity" - that is, "creator" of a "work". Indeed, Canadian Copyright
uses the term "author" rather than "creator". There are various things which
are not able to be copyright - lists, titles etc. But your web example above
is particularly misleading. If you "created" the web page format/layout and
someone else steals it and just inserts their own information, that is
indeed a copyright infringement. It is not the information that is
copyrighted, but the actual web page layout and format, which you created
(or authored) - even if you used a programme to do it.

tim

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