Copyright

As students, readers, viewers, writers or practically anyone who’s been exposed to modern technology, we can all attest to the fact that in some way, we’ve been exposed to at least the idea of “copyright”. With that in mind, we can all assume that “copyright” enables exclusivity in producing, creating, and distributing an individual’s work — or at least as one who’s spent the majority of their pre-teen years producing One Direction fanfiction, I might’ve had somewhat of an inclination of what that meant…

But that’s beyond the point.

When considering copyright with publications, novels, films (etc.), it is very easy to confuse the actual meaning of this term. Copyright is known to protect an individual’s work, but in what sense? We can answer this question by looking into the case of Pendragon vs. Keening.

Pendragon is a mathematician known for designing a formula that enabled non repeating patterns based on the numbers that were plugged in. Following the creation of this concept, Pendragon’s formula immediately spreads to the studies of other mathematicians and professors with the thought that it may serve as an advance in mathematical studies. However, when an engineer at Keening Paper attains the formula, he finds a way to utilize it in an innovative and useful way, by use of paper products and consumption. In the end, he establishes a process with a pattern identical to Pendragon’s and the company later begins selling their products of similar design. When Pendragon gains awareness of this, he immediately contacts his legal team, with the intention to sue.

With knowledge that this formula was created and copywritten — enabling its exclusivity — was the engineer in the wrong for creating a useful solution out of it? According to the definition of copyright, the owner has rights to “make copies, distribute their work, adapt, publicly display and perform their work”, however, is the idea itself also exclusive to the copyright owner? The answer to that question is no. While Keening Paper did infringe copyright by selling and distributing a design identical to Pendragon’s formula, it does not go any further than that. Copyright protects “creative expression”, but does not protect the idea itself. That is why we see films and stories with similar plots, or similar products (like Pepsi and Coke). In the end, we’ve learned that although copyright is very useful to obtain when producing a piece of work, it does not protect every aspect of the things we make.