CONCEPT
The Idea-Expression Distinction
The foundational copyright doctrine — descended from Fichte — that protects the specific form of a text while leaving its underlying ideas in the public domain.
The idea-expression distinction is the load-bearing structural feature of modern copyright. You cannot copyright a fact, a concept, an argument, or an idea. You can copyright the specific language in which that fact is stated, the concept developed, the argument made. The distinction was articulated most rigorously by Fichte in 1793 and has governed copyright jurisprudence ever since. Its doctrinal elegance enabled two and a half centuries of intellectual property law. Its ontological foundation — the claim that form bears the unique imprint of an individual mind — is what AI has now called into question.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The distinction performs essential functional work. Without it, copyright would either protect too little (leaving writers unable to prevent the pirating of their works) or too much (allowing writers to monopolize ideas themselves, chilling subsequent expression). By drawing the line at form, copyright secures the writer's economic interest without sequestering the intellectual common ground on which future work must build.
In American