Copyright laws protect original creative works and artistic expressions, but phrases are not considered original enough to be protected. However, phrases can be protected through other means such as trademark registration for commercial use.
While the exact nature of copyrights in a particular country depends on its copyright laws, in many places it is not possible to protect a phrase because it does not constitute a sufficiently original work. In the United States, for example, you can only copyright a work that is original and constitutes a creative artwork or similar creation. A poem, even if it is often short, is protected by copyright because of its function as an original art that expresses an idea in a unique or new way. You can’t protect a phrase because, essentially, it isn’t artistic or creative, although you can potentially protect a phrase by other methods.
Copyright laws in the United States and other countries such as the United Kingdom provide protection for original creative works and artistic expressions. This work must exist in a somewhat tangible form, such as written, typed, carved, or recorded, to establish its singular form. You can’t copyright a phrase because the phrase probably doesn’t represent a new work in its entirety. If you wanted to copyright a phrase that is part of a work of art, you wouldn’t be able to do so, even though the entire work would be copyrighted.
This is similar to the fact that you cannot protect a character name or the title of a work of art or creative expression. A copyright represents ownership over intellectual property in the form of a work of art. You cannot copyright a phrase because a phrase does not inherently represent a work of art of creative expression. If you were to write a short poem that was essentially identical to a sentence, you would have the protection of your poem under copyright, even if you cannot protect the sentence itself. This protection would cover the poem, but not other uses of that particular set of words in ways that don’t represent similar works of art.
While it is not possible to copyright a phrase, in certain situations it is possible to protect it by other means. If you want to use a particular phrase as an identifier in business for a particular company, product, or service, you can secure that phrase in a variety of means. In general, one would like to register the phrase for protection as a trademark or service mark. This would protect that phrase for use in commercial applications, but it wouldn’t grant you copyright protection for that particular phrase.
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