An Interesting Court Case

[estragon]

Not quite as exciting as the Health Care decision, but here's one of interest to authors.

We used to be sure here in Second Circuit land (New York, Vermont and Connecticut) that “theft of concept or idea” might be a valid State law claim based on some kind of contract theory (“I’ll tell you my idea if you agree to help me market it, and we’ll split the profits”, and then you take the idea, market it for big bucks, and give me nothing), but was barred under the Federal Copyright Act, 17 USC §102(b), which states in part: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea… concept, principle, or discovery...”

Now Second Circuit has decided that theft of idea is not wiped out by the Copyright Act. Here’s the decision, and for NBC it is a true Royal Pain:

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/11-2011/11-2011-2012-06-26.pdf

So Litsters, read and heed. While this case only applies in Second Circuit land, this could be the wave of the future elsewhere.

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[sr71plt]

If you can prove theft of an intellectual idea that then turned a profit for others, you can successfully sue, and, as far as I can remember, this has been successfully done in the past. ("Proving" this to a court's satisfaction is, of course, not an easy thing to do.)

This doesn't really have anything to do with copyright, though. You never have been able to copyright an "idea" in U.S. law (maybe you can in the laws of some other countries), so it never has been a copyright issue in the United States. (You could trademark a marketable idea if you can get through the process before anyone else did and show that it turns a profit. But, again, this is a different kettle of fish than copyright.)

That court wasn't overturning anything to do with copyright, I would think. Probably just affirming that copyright doesn't apply.

 

[Handley_Page]

If you can prove theft of an intellectual idea that then turned a profit for others, you can successfully sue, and, as far as I can remember, this has been successfully done in the past. ("Proving" this to a court's satisfaction is, of course, not an easy thing to do.)

Philo T Farnsworth vs RCA, 1928 on