Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Let's say we have a well done HTML on PG. I run it through Calibre to generate a Mobipocket version and I want to copyright it. If I copyright it, can someone else do the same thing and get the same eBook and also copyright it or is it too late because I've done it first?
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AFAIK, copyrights aren't like patents; they're not exclusive to the first person that registers them. If two publishers independently choose the same font & layout for their public domain works, both editions are copyrighted to their respective publishers. If two authors come up with the same exact poem, both of them own the copyrights. (I have trouble imagining this for poems of any notable complexity, but could see formulaic, simple poems assigned to high school students occasionally having exact duplicates.)
It could be troublesome to prove in court which one was being copied, if the case came up. OTOH, I don't think that formatting copyrights have ever gone to court for books. (They have for websites.)