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The idea–expression distinction or idea–expression dichotomy is a legal doctrine in the United States that limits the scope of copyright protection by differentiating an idea from the expression or manifestation of that idea.
The Supreme Court was the source of a number of concepts in the field, including fair use, the idea-expression divide, the useful articles or separability doctrine, and the uncopyrightability of federal documents. This list is a list solely of United States Supreme Court decisions about applying copyright law.
The idea–expression divide differentiates between ideas and expression, and states that copyright protects only the original expression of ideas, and not the ideas themselves. This principle, first clarified in the 1879 case of Baker v.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". [1] [2] With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These ...
The interplay of copyright law and competition law is increasingly important in the digital world, as most countries' laws allow private contracts to over-ride copyright law. Given that copyright law creates a legally sanctioned monopoly, balanced by "limitations and exceptions" that allow access without the permission of the copyright holder ...
Although Baker v. Selden sharpened the idea-expression dichotomy, Pam Samuelson argues Baker is not the genesis of the distinction nor of the "merger" doctrine ("which holds that if an idea can only be expressed in one or a small number of ways, copyright law will not protect the expression because it has "merged" with the idea"). [3]
In most countries that have national copyright laws, copyright applies to the original expression in a work rather than to the meanings or ideas being expressed. Whether a paraphrase is an infringement of expression, or a permissible restatement of an idea, is not a binary question but a matter of degree.
Autodesk Inc v Dyason (No.2), [9] (1993) 111 ALR 385 (the idea-expression divide is the "dominant principle in copyright law" per Mason CJ: "when the expression of any idea is inseparable from its function, it forms part of the idea and is not entitled to the protection of copyright" per Dawson J)