Image talk:Caffeine molecule.png

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How can an image of a molecule's structure be copyrighted? RickK 05:26, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

The image itself is a creative work, and that's what's copyrighted. It's like how a photographer can claim copyright on a photograph that he or she has taken of the Eiffel tower or something. Anyone else can come along and take a picture of the same thing, but that specific picture is copyrighted. (note: not a lawyer :) Bryan 05:33, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

IANAL, but I think the way copyright law works is that a depiction of the molecule's structure can be copyrighted but the actual structure itself cannot be. Dysprosia 05:34, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

An interesting question (IANAL). With this kind of molecular diagram, basically the only thing distinctive is the typography. It's almost like copyrighting a TeX graphic of an equation. I think if you ripped off en masse a bunch of molecular diagrams from a web site and used them for your own purposes, it would be considered a violation, but on the other hand, you could make this identical diagram from scratch, almost pixel for pixel, indistinguishable to the naked eye and there is no way it could be considered a copyright violation (if it were, a hundred years of publication of chemistry literature would in violation). In other words, I think it could a copyright violation only if it were pixel-for-pixel exactly the same file (or a portion of it). In other words, use the same file: violation. Make your own that looks the same: not a violation. Science exists in this strange grey area. -- Decumanus | Talk 05:43, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] SVG?

Lately I've seen alot of images on Wikipedia tagged with a box saying the information they contain would be better represented as an SVG. Would this (and for that matter, most molecular structure images) be eligible? Vicious Blayd 19:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)