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United States copyright law protects original expressions but not facts, methods, discoveries, or other ideas being expressed, a doctrine known as the idea–expression distinction. Despite making this distinction, verbatim copying is not always required for copyright infringement, as paraphrasing is also prohibited in certain circumstances. [6]
Furthermore, it is not clear that there is any real distinction between the idea in a work of art and its expression. An artist's idea, among other things, is to depict a particular subject in a particular way. As a demonstration, a number of cases from this Circuit have observed that a photographer's "conception" of his subject is copyrightable.
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.
Another author is free to describe the same theory in their own words without infringing on the original author's copyright. [8] Although fundamental, the idea–expression dichotomy is often difficult to put into practice. Reasonable people can disagree about where the unprotectable "idea" ends and the protectable "expression" begins.
The copyright of a book on book-keeping cannot secure the exclusive right to make, sell, and use account books prepared upon the plan set forth in such a book. The court wrote extensively about the distinction between patent law and copyright law. Exclusive rights to the "useful art" described in a book was only available by patent. The ...
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)
Merger doctrine is a simple doctrine in IP law which states that when the expression of an idea can only occur in one or a few different ways or the expression of an idea is a necessary implication of the efficient expression of the idea then the idea merges with the expression and cannot be the subject of a copyright.
For example, a recipe is a process, and not copyrightable, but the words used to describe it are; see idea-expression divide and Publications International v. Meredith Corp. (1996). [3] Therefore, a recipe can be rewritten with different wording and be published without infringing copyright.