Copy Right Law and Concepts

[Midnight Phantom]

I have always heard the separation of  copyright artwork and its idea/concept(USA) here and on PI but I have never seen someone quote the law or the passage it comes from. So I did a really really quick look around and found this....yes on Wikipedia of all places so there is chance for it to be bad information, yet I thought it would be nice information to know and a good place to start if anyone wanted to read more.

Copyright law protects the expression of an idea, but copyright does not protect the idea itself. This limitation is called the idea/expression dichotomy.[15]

The distinction between "idea" and "expression" is fundamental, but not always clear. From the 1976 Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 102):
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

Link: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Idea.2Fexpression_dichotomy

[BabyKittenCandy]

I believe (and I could well be wrong!) that you have to pay to have something copyrighted. But, I dont know a whole lot about art and copyright, so ^^

[Whimsy]

First off. Exactly.

Second yes you have to pay to copyright things. I pay every time a create a flyer or logo for companies.

[sera]

Actually, BKC, that's incorrect, at least in regards to art and writing.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

A work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created, that is,
"fixed" in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the
Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection. There
are, however, certain advantages to registration, including establishment of a
public record of the copyright claim.

Otherwise basically any artistic endeavour would be screwed constantly. xD;

[Ember]

As for Wikipedia as a source: It's a completely valid place to start looking for information. Wikipedia articles are (usually) properly cited with where they get their info from. Those little numbers in brackets? That tells you where the info originated. So hey, go ahead and use Wikipedia to start a search but if you want to use the information, check out the citations to get (likely) primary sources).

[Midnight Phantom]

Ahh thanks sera XD that was the type of site I was looking for, but like I said it was a very quick search ^.^

[Whimsy]

Midnight phantom what you posted is still correct to the issue, you cannot copyright an idea and so forth. The copyright protects the original piece not the concept or so forth of the original piece.

[Sarah Badr]

So you can't use that exact artwork or artwork created by someone else that looks exactly the same....but you can create your own artwork based on the same concept...i.e. plantXdragon creatures...?

[SGA]

Not sure if it helps/is true/is relevant in this situation, but years ago Mom was told if she wanted to be sure there was a "record" of her unregistered copyright (ie: she writes a poem, and wants to own the copyright but not pay for registry or what not) that she merely had to mail a copy to herself, and then not open it once it came in the mail.  So that the post office would date stamp the envelope, and should she ever need it, this would be proof of her date of creation/copyright.

[sera]

Actually....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Koons

The bottom line is this:

"The similarity was so close that the average lay person would recognize the copying, a measure for evaluation."

And that WOULD make it illegal.

[Rosedawn]

Yeah you don't have to pay for art and writing. I remember this because a guy had his laptop stolen as he was working on a biography for some famous person. That person stole the work and claimed it as an autobiography and got sued for awhole lot of money for plagiarism.

[timbergray]

Mailing things to yourself, also known as the poor man's copyright, is basically worthless anymore as it rarely holds up in court over other versions of proof and isn't really proof of creation.  It was probably more viable in the past, but time moves forward and things change.