[Commons-l] Flag copyright

Fri Jun 30 19:27:57 UTC 2006

On 6/30/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to work?
>
> If a flag design is PD, and I make a faithful representation of it
> (intended to be a duplicate), do I have any copyright over it or not?

Depends where you are in the world.  In the United States, there is a
minimum creativity bar to clear, which accurate copying generally does
not.  Thus in the US exact copying does not create new copyright.

In some other places in the world, new copyright is created every time
a new copy of the work is created - this "mechanical copyright" means
that a copy of a public-domain work is not necessarily public domain.
This is the case in the UK among others, I believe.

-Matt