500-8
503
Registration requirements for drawings, paintings, other pictorial works, and sculpture. (cont'd)
503.2
Copyrightable pictorial, graphic, and sculptural expression. (cont'd)
503.02(b)
Minimal standards: sculptural material. (cont'd)
Examples: (cont'd)
3)
(cont'd)
of glass. Practice: Registration based upon the cumulative effect produced by the component members of the mobile will be refused. If these members had contained copyrightable authorship, registration could have been considered on the basis of the two-dimensional design features displayed by the pieces of glass.503.03
Works not capable of supporting a copyright claim. Claims to copyright in the following works cannot be registered in the Copyright Office:
503.03(a)
Works not originated by a human author. In order to be entitled to copyright registration, a work must be the product of human authorship. Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable. Thus, a linoleum floor covering featuring a multicolored pebble design which was produced by a mechanical process in unrepeatable, random patterns, is not registrable. Similarly, a work owing its form to the forces of nature and lacking human authorship is not registrable; thus, for example, a piece of driftwood even if polished and mounted is not registrable.
[1984]
