> > 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 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).