> My wife works in design. It's amazingly easy to try to come up with a new logo design that somehow nearly exactly matches other existing logos that are in use by other companies. They have to spend a huge amount of time making sure their 'original work' doesn't violate someone else's copyright/trademark.
> Is 'creation' the act of violating copyright? I wouldn't think so.
It absolutely can be. There's numerous cases of courts finding cases of copyright violation due to accidental copying, particularly in the music industry.
I know, that might sound unintuitive, but the law is the law:
> But since 1931, a defendant’s mental state has clearly not been relevant under U.S. copyright law to the question of liability for direct copyright infringement. As the Supreme Court stated that year, “[i]ntention to infringe is not essential under the Act.” So innocent infringers are just as liable as those who infringe knowingly or recklessly.
As an aside, logo design, which you mentioned, actually comes with a whole other set of considerations, as you're less concerned about copyright and more about trademark, which is a whole different branch of IP law.
> Is 'creation' the act of violating copyright? I wouldn't think so.
It absolutely can be. There's numerous cases of courts finding cases of copyright violation due to accidental copying, particularly in the music industry.
I know, that might sound unintuitive, but the law is the law:
https://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/reese/reese_innoce...
> But since 1931, a defendant’s mental state has clearly not been relevant under U.S. copyright law to the question of liability for direct copyright infringement. As the Supreme Court stated that year, “[i]ntention to infringe is not essential under the Act.” So innocent infringers are just as liable as those who infringe knowingly or recklessly.
As an aside, logo design, which you mentioned, actually comes with a whole other set of considerations, as you're less concerned about copyright and more about trademark, which is a whole different branch of IP law.