Creativity and originality requirements Sample Clauses

Creativity and originality requirements. It is important to note that the works listed in Article 2(1) are mere illustrations of the kind of works that qualify as “literary and artistic works.” Thus, it is quite possible to extend copyright protection to works that are not enumerated in Arti- cle 2(1), so long as the work can reasonably qualify as “productions in the literary, scientific and artistic domain.” The Berne Convention does not offer much insight into a precise definition for this phrase. However, the history of the Berne negoti- ations indicate that delegates agreed that some element of creative activity must be present in the work.37 In other words, the work protected must be considered an intellectual creation. As the German law puts it, the work must be a “personal intellectual creation.”38 The substantive quality of the work is typically of no rel- evance to the question of eligibility for protection; thus, the first poem of a new author is entitled to copyright protection as much as a poem by an accomplished and renowned poet. This is, in effect, an agreement that neutrality (or indifference) to the aesthetic value of a work is a standard principle of copyright regulation. As an international matter, aesthetic neutrality has the benefit of avoiding con- testable determinations of culturally subjective evaluations of the merit of literary and artistic works from different parts of the world. At the same time, aesthetic neutrality from a national perspective allows judicial enforcement of copyright to be based on legal standards and not the aesthetic judgment (or preference) of the judge.39 It is not surprising, then, that the vast majority of countries have adopted this approach, requiring that a work be creative or “original” meaning that the work should demonstrate intellectual investment but not requiring any standard of quality for the purposes of copyright protection. In this regard, Xxxxx Xxxxxx- tion Article 2(5) mandates protection for collections of works which by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations. Examples of such collective works include encyclopaedias, academic journals and anthologies.40 While it has generally been agreed upon by member countries that the work be original (i.e., it should be the product of independent human intellect and cre- ativity), levels of the originality requirement may differ from country to country. In the United States, originality is a fairly low standard requiring “only that the 37 ...