Please visit this site: http://www.copyright.gov/title37/ http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107 As you work your way through this site you will come to: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT? Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others: * Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded) * Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents * Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration * Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. The term "compilation" includes collective works. Hope this helps. Larry Rauch