For the most part, origami designers believe crease patterns like these and other forms of instructions for origami models are analogous to sheet music. As with music, the performance (in origami's case the model itself) is copyrightable as is the sheet music (the crease pattern).
Would a painting and coloring in of the full sheet music for a song still in copyright be considered transformative? I think so but I don't think the legality of that is completely cut and dry.
It can be done and it is done often. I've done it myself. It isn't as difficult as you might think. There are set patterns and well defined mathematical rules that drive origami. Also, the rule of thumb is that the creases almost always alternate between mountain and valley folds.
There is no order that the folds have to be made. Typically one makes all of the indicated creases and if done correctly the paper will naturally want to collapse into the base. From there it is just a matter of adding details to finish the model. Many of these complex models actually have no sequenced series of folds and can only be formed in this manner.
Lets take the hawk crease pattern above. Someone with a little bit of practice can see that the tail is the bottom left corner, the feet come from the upper left and lower right corner, and the head is the upper right corner. the bulk of the center of the paper gets folded inside the model. I'm not as good with insects but in this case Lang provided clues with the circles. The circles denote that that region of the paper will collapse to form a point. That makes 14 points, probably 6 for legs, 2 for wings, and the rest for the head.
In practice, crease patterns like these are indeed provided as the instructions to fold origami models, particularly very complex models like those used in this case. There is also an art to creating clear and understandable crease patterns as you have to pick and choose which creases to include, whether or not to show the circle packing and rivers, whether to show the direction of the creases, etc.
That being said, while I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Lang and the other artists in the suit, I think the suit itself is ridiculous and what the artists has done is clearly fair use.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by paperrhino.
Re: Confusion of types of IP
For the most part, origami designers believe crease patterns like these and other forms of instructions for origami models are analogous to sheet music. As with music, the performance (in origami's case the model itself) is copyrightable as is the sheet music (the crease pattern).
Would a painting and coloring in of the full sheet music for a song still in copyright be considered transformative? I think so but I don't think the legality of that is completely cut and dry.
Re: Re:
It can be done and it is done often. I've done it myself. It isn't as difficult as you might think. There are set patterns and well defined mathematical rules that drive origami. Also, the rule of thumb is that the creases almost always alternate between mountain and valley folds.
There is no order that the folds have to be made. Typically one makes all of the indicated creases and if done correctly the paper will naturally want to collapse into the base. From there it is just a matter of adding details to finish the model. Many of these complex models actually have no sequenced series of folds and can only be formed in this manner.
Lets take the hawk crease pattern above. Someone with a little bit of practice can see that the tail is the bottom left corner, the feet come from the upper left and lower right corner, and the head is the upper right corner. the bulk of the center of the paper gets folded inside the model. I'm not as good with insects but in this case Lang provided clues with the circles. The circles denote that that region of the paper will collapse to form a point. That makes 14 points, probably 6 for legs, 2 for wings, and the rest for the head.
Re: Re: Re: Can you copyright origami?
In practice, crease patterns like these are indeed provided as the instructions to fold origami models, particularly very complex models like those used in this case. There is also an art to creating clear and understandable crease patterns as you have to pick and choose which creases to include, whether or not to show the circle packing and rivers, whether to show the direction of the creases, etc.
That being said, while I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Lang and the other artists in the suit, I think the suit itself is ridiculous and what the artists has done is clearly fair use.