Intellectual property lawyers: What cannot be copyrighted?
Recently, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about copyright complaints… What’s copyrightable, what is not?
Copyright complaints, when it comes to Amazon sellers, have to do with verbiage, copying and pasting someone else’s words or images / pictures. You cannot use somebody else’s pictures when you’re creating a listing. You need to create your own. They have to be Amazon compliant.
So I wanted to go through a short list of some material of what cannot be copyrighted:
- Now the first thing on my list is ideas, methods, or systems.
If you’re referring to just an idea or a method, it is not copyrightable. A classic example is an invention. The reason why an invention is not copyrightable is because another form of intellectual property protects inventions and that is called patents. - The second thing on my list is names, titles, and short phrases.
Obvious reasons anyone uses a name or a short phrase, for example, there’s no copyright protection. I can’t copyright my name, my name is David. I can’t copyright someone else’s name or a short phrase like, Been there, done that.” - Third, fonts and lettering.
So if you create a new font, generally, not copyrightable material. Blank forms, any sort of form, not copyrightable. - And lastly, familiar signs and designs.
So, a shape, for example, a circle, square, any sort of sign that you see all the time, like a stop sign, not copyrightable material.