Legal Question in Intellectual Property in District of Columbia

Copyright issue

Do I have your question right?

Mr. X reads a magazine article, mulls it over a second, and writes his own "abstract" of the article. The abstract includes wording from the article, but is of course much condensed.

1. Is Mr. X free to publish his abstract without having to get permission from the magazine's publisher?

My answer: Generally, yes.

2. Does Mr. X have a copyright for the abstract he's written?

My answer: Generally, yes.

Major businesses, including Chemical Abstracts in Columbus, Ohio, and ISI in Philadelphia, do exactly that.

Note, however, that the owner of a copyright in a work of authorship has the right to prohibit the publication of "derivative works." If the abstract is so large that it rises to the dignity of being a "derivative work," and if it doesn't constitute "fair use," then it couldn't lawfully be published without permission from the copyright owner.

Also note that although acknowledgment and citation to the source might be used to show that one's activities are in good faith and to seek to qualify for the "fair use" exception or for "innocent infringement" rather than "willful infringement," if the work one writes is found to infringe the original, the infringement is not excused by such citation to the source.

Thus, if any money is riding on the results, one would be well advised to seek advice on any specific situation from an attorney with expertise in copyrights (a species of "intellectual property").

Whose side are you on? Are the the abstractor?

Generally abstracts (which are very brief summaries) are entirely distinct works created by the abstractor, copyrightable by the abstractor, and are written without the permissionof the author whose work has been 'abstracted'. The abstract does not quote any substantialpart of the original work or any long passages and merely, in newwords, summarizes and describes the original. (Without permission ... means they don't haveto pay the original author for the privilege of publishing an abstract of his work.)

Think of copyright as a lock on the expression of something, that is, the words or diagrams themselves, not their ideas.That way, you can see how both the original work and an abstractitself can enjoy 2 distinct copyright protections. (The authorof the original article cannot use the abstract freely either, bythe way.)

Clear as mud?