How the hell did he arrive at the conclusion there was some sort of one-drop rule for non-protected works.
Just because the registration is blocked if you don’t specify which part is the result of human creativity, doesn’t mean the copyright on the part that is the result of human creativity is forfeit.
Copyright exists even before registration, registration just makes it easier to enforce. And nobody says you can’t just properly refile for registration of the part that is the result of human creativity.
Yeah, a lot of copyright law in the US is extremely forgiving towards creators making mistakes. For example, you can only file for damages after you register the copyright, but you can register after the damages. So like if I made a book, someone stole it and starting selling copies, I could register for a copyright afterwards. Which honestly is for the best. Everything you make inherently has copyright. This comment, once I click send, will be copyrighted. It would just senselessly create extra work for the government and small creators if everything needed to be registered to get the protections.
Edit: As an example of this, this is why many websites in their terms of use have something like “you give us the right to display your work” because, in some sense, they don’t have the right to do that unless you give them the right. Because you have a copyright on it. Displaying work over the web is a form of distribution.
That edit had confused so many users over the years. They think they are signing away rights to their copyrighted work by agreeing to the platform’s EULA, but the terms granting them license to freely store and distribute your work? That’s literally what you want their service to do because you’re posting it with the intention of the platform showing it to others!
Granted, companies are using user data for other purposes too, so that’s a problem, but I’ve seen so so many posts over the last couple decades of people complaining about EULAs that describe core site functions…
How the hell did he arrive at the conclusion there was some sort of one-drop rule for non-protected works.
Just because the registration is blocked if you don’t specify which part is the result of human creativity, doesn’t mean the copyright on the part that is the result of human creativity is forfeit.
Copyright exists even before registration, registration just makes it easier to enforce. And nobody says you can’t just properly refile for registration of the part that is the result of human creativity.
Yeah, a lot of copyright law in the US is extremely forgiving towards creators making mistakes. For example, you can only file for damages after you register the copyright, but you can register after the damages. So like if I made a book, someone stole it and starting selling copies, I could register for a copyright afterwards. Which honestly is for the best. Everything you make inherently has copyright. This comment, once I click send, will be copyrighted. It would just senselessly create extra work for the government and small creators if everything needed to be registered to get the protections.
Edit: As an example of this, this is why many websites in their terms of use have something like “you give us the right to display your work” because, in some sense, they don’t have the right to do that unless you give them the right. Because you have a copyright on it. Displaying work over the web is a form of distribution.
That edit had confused so many users over the years. They think they are signing away rights to their copyrighted work by agreeing to the platform’s EULA, but the terms granting them license to freely store and distribute your work? That’s literally what you want their service to do because you’re posting it with the intention of the platform showing it to others!
Granted, companies are using user data for other purposes too, so that’s a problem, but I’ve seen so so many posts over the last couple decades of people complaining about EULAs that describe core site functions…