Please note that it's the weekend, it's after hours, I have no formal legal training, and I'm not speaking for my employer. I merely (think that I) understand my employer's perspective on this issue.

O'Reilly holds the copyright on the book on behalf of Damian. This gives O'Reilly the right to prosecute copyright violations as well as to issue reprints and revisions, as desired. (It also frees Damian from having to pursue violations on his own, as that's a big hassle for an individual.)

With few exceptions, a book's title or cover image is very difficult to copyright. (You also don't "lose" a copyright if you don't "protect" it. You're probably thinking of trademark, which is a very different thing. There are no submarine trademarks, if the system works by design.)

O'Reilly does claim trademark over the title and the use of the cover image (and association of a staghound with Perl Best Practices) within a specific trade: technical books. You do have to register a trademark. (I don't know how that works with regard to books; I've never worked on that part.)

However, the important part of trademark is the likelihood of confusion. Is posting a picture of the book online sufficient to confuse people that the book is somehow yours or that you have the official book or represent a product in the same trade as that of the mark holder? It's easier to answer that sentence than to parse it: of course not.

Trademark would come into play if you were to produce a book that had a similar cover or title and try to sell it; then it would be important to decide whether you intended confusion in the marketplace. This is still very distinct from copyright. You could be guilty of trademark infringement without copyright infringement or vice versa.

In other words, you have the right answer (post it; it's cool) though your reasoning isn't quite precisely accurate.

In reply to Re^4: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by chromatic
in thread What qualifies as copyrighted material? by rodion

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