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0 pointsstarfallg5y ago0 comments

>For example, recipes are not individually copyrightable, but if you compile a set of recipes and publish them in a cookbook, the cookbook itself becomes copyrightable.

Recipes that contains more than just the basic list of ingredients and instructions can be copyrightable. Include a picture, illustration or a bit of creative text and copyright will apply on that. That's the true reason why cookbooks fall under copyright (while the actual list of ingredients and instructions do not, which people do lift out of cookbooks for example).

Even when applying copyright to an "arrangement" of items that are not copyrightable, as in a database, there needs to be creativity expressed, otherwise it will not qualify for copyright.

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nodamage5y ago

While that might be true, it's not really relevant to the underlying point, which is the selection and arrangement of non-copyrightable material can result in a copyrightable work. You can replace recipes with any other example if you'd like.

> Even when applying copyright to an "arrangement" of items that are not copyrightable, as in a database, there needs to be creativity expressed, otherwise it will not qualify for copyright.

As the Supreme Court said in Feist: "To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice."

This is not a very difficult threshold to meet (and Google has already conceded it has been met.)

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