Are new works without a copyright notice automatically copyrighted under the Berne Convention? Does the Berne Convention automatically give copyright protection for new works that lack a copyright notice? For example, if I wrote and released a PDF book but forgot to include a copyright notice, do I still own the copyright to the book?
Copyright notice is not relevant to having a Copyright. 1 Copyright starts to exist the moment a work is created. When the pen touches the paper the first time or the hammer strikes the block to become a statue, the work is started to be created. At that moment 2, copyright is gained as it becomes a work, usually defined in the national laws. Publication for sure grants all the rights according to the Berne Convention rules - which are the absolute minimum standards. In the united-states the Berne Convention's agreement is for example codified as 17 USC §102 and uses the moment of creation to start rights: Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Similarly, the German Urheberrechtsgesetz does list what can be copyrighted and that the copyright is with the author, and presumes the act of creation creates the copyright for nationals, and publication for non-nationals: Section 1: The authors of works in the literary, scientific and artistic domain enjoy protection for their works in accordance with this Act. Section 2: (1) Protected works in the literary, scientific and artistic domain include, in particular: [List of items] Section 120: (1) German nationals shall enjoy copyright protection with respect to all of their works, whether or not they have been published and regardless of the place of publication. In the case of a work created by joint authors (Article 8), it shall be sufficient if one of the joint authors is a German national. Section 121: (1) Foreign nationals shall enjoy copyright protection with respect to their works published in the territory to which this Law applies, unless the work or a translation of the work has been published outside that territory more than 30 days prior to its publication within that territory. Subject to the same limitation, foreign nationals shall enjoy protection with respect to their works published in the territory to which this Law applies in translation only. There is no registration needed to have a copyright. However in the US you need to register a copyright to seek specific damages in the courts. 1 - Currently. In the past it had been very relevant, but laws have changed since then. 2 - Technically shortly after the moment that the first touch is done and the work gains some originality, but there already can be an artistic expression in a single brushstroke of a minimalistic piece or a single stroke calligraphy - and the absolute minimum originality needed is rather low: while putting ARD in a line in a specific font is not protectable under copyright (it's a trademark), a 6-tune jingle is enough to be deemed a protected work in itself! Under German law, this is the Kleine Münze
Everything except the summary and the cover art are all facts; facts are not subject to copyright. The summary and cover art would be subject to copyright. You may have a fair use defence given that all you are doing is cataloguing the books.
Copyright infringement requires that you actually copy elements from an earlier work produced by a different author. If you created a similar, or even identical, work independently, it is not copyright infringement. When considering whether or not infringement has occurred, the court is likely to consider whether the defendant could reasonably have had access to the plaintiff's work. If the court finds that they could have, then the defendant would be required to produce evidence of original authorship. Consider the My Sweet Lord/He So Fine case, where the court found the defendant had subconsciously copied the plaintiff's song. Had Harrison been able to produce evidence of original authorship, the judgment could have been different. In your example, it is unlikely that an suit in copyright infringement could be decided against you, as you've stated the text is generated randomly. However, more evidence of this randomness might be required to support your case. Of course, whether a computer or automated process can produce works independently is still questionable; I'm not aware of cases that have tried this. The US Copyright Office has said that Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable. Of course, whether this has a bearing on your particular scenario is undecided, and I'm not sure how it would be decided. It is almost certain that the worst case outcome would be an injunction requiring you to cease publicising the product, or perform reasonable checks prior to publication to ensure that the product of your program infringes on works; it would be unlikely that you would have costs ordered against you, especially if the program is truly random, and the random text was given as much, or more, publicity than the coherent text.
They are claiming copyright protection so you cannot copy it unless fair dealing exemptions apply. However, there is no copyright in facts - only in they way facts are presented. If you present them in a different way ...
Whether published or unpublished, they are still protected by copyright. (They are probably unpublished for copyright purposes, but in the US this makes little difference for any recently created work (that is anything after 2002). For older work see the Cornell chart.) They cannot be copied or distributed without permission, unless an exception to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing applies. And it is hard to see how either would apply to entire essays simply begin placed in a database. Placing text in a database is probably making a copy, and might be distributing it or publishing it, depending on how access to the DB is granted. Now data from the essays, as opposed to the texts of the essays themselves, are probably facts. Facts are not protected by copyright in any Berne Convention country, including the US, the UK, and the EU.
Alice has been developing her own enhancements, and they're pretty similar to Bob's. Neither Alice nor Bob has copied the other's enhancements, so neither has violated the other's copyright in the enhancements. Whether that could be proved in court is another matter, of course, but since the original work is licensed under creative commons the question unlikely to arise in court. Would Alice be prevented from coming up with enhancements to her own game if other people could prove they thought of and released the idea first? No. Copyright does not protect ideas. It only protects a particular expression of those ideas from being copied. Theoretically, if two authors come up with identical 500-word descriptions of something and can establish that each did so independently, neither has a claim against the other. The practical problem there, of course, is that it would be impossible to prove such a thing. Could Alice outright claim Bob's "Adapted Material" because he developed it on her original work? Assuming that in publishing his adaptations Bob followed the terms of the creative commons license with respect to the original work, Alice's only claim would be that he copied her adaptations without following the terms of the license. If Bob can show that he did not do so, her claim would fail. In a comment, you wrote: Suppose Alice went ahead and intentionally, somehow provably ripped off Bob's "Adapted Material" because she liked the content so much, does Bob reserve any rights on his adaptation, or is Alice able to commercialize the work that Bob did in extending her original work? If we assume that Bob complied with the license of the original material, we know that he licensed his adaptations under "the identical terms," so Alice would be able to use Bob's adaptations under those terms for non-commercial purposes. Since the assumption here is that Alice provably copied something of Bob's, I think it is fairly clear that she would be liable for damages if she exploited that material commercially without paying royalties.
U.S. law defines a derivative work in 17 USC §101: A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, [...] abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. Similarly, the Copyright Act of Canada reserves exclusively for the copyright holder the right to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work... Finally, in any of the 171 nations that are signatories to the Berne Convention treaty, Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works. Therefore, if it highly likely that you need authorization from the copyright holder to produce a translation of a copyrighted work in your jurisdiction. In nations that are Berne signatories, copyright is automatic, so there is no need for a copyright holder to display a copyright notice in order to receive exclusive rights under copyright law.
Ideas are not protected by copyright, only arrangements of words are protected. If you &quot;rephrase&quot; by only a minor change of wording, leaving much of the wording intact, that is still a copyright infringement unless an exception such as fair use or fair dealing applies (and that seems a bit doubtful in this case). If you &quot;rephrase&quot; so that the wording is quite different, even though the idea is the same, there is probably no infringement. Copying elements of computer code or other IT commands that are essential to making an example work is not infringement. Where there is only one or a very small number of ways to naturally express a fact, copying such expression is not infringement, as facts are not protected by copyright. Adding examples but keeping significant wording unchanged is still likely to be infringement.