Are spoilers copyright infringement?

K

kellyhuffaker

New member
Some discussions about the (il)legality of scanlations and fansubs got me wondering about something. If a person reaRAB/watches a work of creative fiction (could be manga or anime, could be a novel, a movie, anything) and posts a detailed summary of it online (say a 300 word summary of a 30 minute TV show), does that count as copyright infringement?

On the one hand, they're taking the ideas the creative staff came up with and redistributing them, to people who may decide not to buy the creative work because the summary they read gave everything away. On the other hand, there are loaRAB of episode guides on the Internet for almost any series you can name, many of them containing very detailed summaries of what happens in each and every episode, yet I've never heard of one getting into any sort of legal trouble.

If someone never even glances at a One Piece scanlation, but still follows the series via detailed spoilers/summaries posted online, is that as bad as reading scans, not as bad but still illegal/unethical, or is it perfectly acceptable?
 
No. Copyright does not protect ideas, only the specific EXPRESSION of ideas. Otherwise it would be illegal for me to tell my buddy, "Yeah, I saw this awesome movie the other night about this giant blue dude who can do stuff with his mind."
 
Well, telling your friend that would fall under the same protection as loaning your friend your Berserk DVRAB, even though uploading the content of those DVRAB online would still be illegal.

And I'm pretty sure ideas are protected. While another movie could legally have a giant blue dude who can do stuff with his mind, if that blue dude is also created by a science experiment, also thinks he might be giving people cancer, also retreats to Mars, and also acts as a "living nuclear deterrent" . . . well, then I'm pretty sure that Alan Moore (or whoever owns the rights to Watchmen) would sue somebody. Like how F.W. Murneau got taken to the cleaners because Nosferatu was too much like Dracula, or how DC Comics got the rights to Captain Marvel because he was too much like Superman.
 
Actually, in many countries lending a DVD or a game to a friend infringes on copyright law and is illegal. However, it's usually never enforced so people still get away with it.
 
Under the letter of the law, yes, that could be copyright infringement. However, the copyright holder would have to demonstrate that the actions of the person posting the summaries was hurting them financially in some way in order to actually sue them for anything.

Posting plot summaries of a TV episode or something on a website can hardly be argued to hurt sales or make people less want to watch a show.

On the other hand, posting a complete transcript of a show, with screen caps IS copyright infringement. Then there's posting transcripts of key conversations and a few screenshots with the rest a summary, etc etc... It's a fuzzy line.
 
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