Forum:What is copyright?

Anyone know what can be/not be copyrighted? For example can a statistic or general knowledge be copyrighted? i.e. the age of the Earth is 4.55 billion years old? or 40% of smokers get lung cancer?

Jamesssss 19:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Copyright. Knowledge cannot be copyrighted, but art, a work of text, or various other works of whatever can be copyrighted. You can cite something as a source for information, but you can't go and copy the text or the graphic from them unless they license it in a way you can, you half to make your own. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Oct 3, 2007 @ 19:32 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. Just to clarify, in the example of the age of the Earth, is it published on the site,

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004373.html

Which contains the copyright, Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. If knowledge cannot be copyrighted, then what is this copyright, copyrighting? Just the wording of the description under some of the facts? -- Jamesssss 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * What's copyrighted is the design of the site, the wording of the text, and the organization of the page. The facts aren't copyrighted. If you want to use that fact on your site, go ahead; just write it in your own words. -- Danny (talk ) 20:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)