These extracts are taken from Wikipedia under the heading "Copyright."


SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT LAW

The United States copyright law protects "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

Copyright law includes the following types of works

Literary
Musical
Dramatic
Pantomimes and choreographic works
Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
Audiovisual works
Sound recordings
Derivative works
Compilations
Architectural works

[edit] Idea/expression
An important limitation on the scope of copyright protection is the idea/expression dichotomy: While copyright law protects the expression of an idea, it does not protect the idea itself.

The distinction between "idea" and "expression" is a fundamental part of U.S. law, but it is not always clear. From the 1976 Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 102):

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
A paper describing a political theory, for example, is copyrightable; it may not be reproduced by anyone else without the author's permission. But the theory itself (which is an idea rather than a specific expression) is not copyrightable. Another author is free to describe the same theory in his or her own words without violating copyright law. Courts disagree on how much of the story and characters of a copyrighted novel or film should be considered copyrightable expression.

FAR USE AND FAIR DEALING
Main articles: Fair use and Fair dealing
Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. Those factors are:

the purpose and character of your use
the nature of the copyrighted work
what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken, and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.


FAIR USE is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The term "fair use" is unique to the United States; a similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.

Another author is free to describe the same theory in his or her own words without violating copyright law.
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Thank you so much for this post.

It truly is appreciated.

Smile.

You are welcome Pamela. I thought it might be of great interest and benefit to some.

Here is a link to some archives of a court case between JZ Knight and a former student.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=223619&invol=o01

The former student elected not to use an attorney but represent himself. It did take up an enormous amount of his time but he won the case.