Portal:Review Board of the United States Copyright Office

“ This is not to say that the variation has to be novel or unique; it simply must embody a distinguishable amount of creativity from the standard representation. The Board rejects your argument that any change resulting from artistic effort necessarily qualifies as a sufficient variation to warrant copyright protection. See Letter from Youssefi to Copyright R&P Division of 09/26/05, at 2–3. The process by which a work or variation is created, be it due to a thunderclap or shaky hand, as in the examples you provide, or due just to pure inspiration, is irrelevant to copyrightability. ”

“ Copyright is not available for every work simply because someone authored it. It is available only for works embodying creative authorship. Some works, such as the Best Western Logo, simply do not meet the admittedly low threshold. ”

“ Selection, Coordination and Arrangement It is true that some combinations of common or standard shapes or other unprotectible elements can embody sufficient creativity with respect to how the elements are combined or arranged to support a copyright. ”