Originality in copyright: a meaningless requirement?
Is there even such thing called 'originality'? Is the originality requirement in copyright a non-requirement? In other words: is there any meaningful threshold to copyright protection? I’ve had the opportunity to discuss this issue three times over less than a month: first, at a workshop in Berlin, then with a Belgian student and, finally, with an IP lawyer based outside Europe. If these three situations had anything in common, it was the suggestion that the originality requirement is not really a requirement – whether under EU or US law – and that copyright protection is very easy to obtain. While it is true that originality is not a particularly difficult condition to satisfy, it is still a requirement and: (1) it is not a mundane one, both in the EU and the US; and (2) there are a few instances in which the threshold would unlikely be passed. The EU originality requirement If we start from the EU, since the landmark decision of the Court of Justice of th...