(a) a contribution to a collective work;
(b) a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work;
(c) a translation;
(d) a supplementary work, that is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes;
(e) a compilation;
(f) an instructional text, that is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities;
(g) a test;
(h) answer material for a test; or
(i) an atlas.
As is all too common in the Copyright Act, this subparagraph makes a great deal more sense if one cuts away the simple instances from back to front. Any properly trained programmer will emphasize that one should put the simplest options in a branching tree at the top of the tree, not at the end, so that others can maintain the code later. It's pretty apparent that no properly trained programmers were involved in creating this monstrosity!3
In any event, it's pretty clear what an atlas (i) is; similarly, a test (g) and answer material for a test (h) are pretty clear. Although the definition of instructional text (f) is both overlong and underinclusive, it is at least clear (although one must question whose purpose matters — the patron's or the creator's?). Skipping a bit, the definition of a supplementary work (d) is simultaneously overlong, underinclusive, and reasonably clear. That leaves us with four remaining possible types of WFH:
(a) a contribution to a collective work;
(b) a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work;
(c) a translation;
(e) a compilation;
So, we've successfully cleared away more than half of the possibilities. The remaining four, however, will not prove so simple. Nor will the universe of works excluded from WFH for nonemployees.
- It's also bad writing, particularly for a list with multiple compound elements. As the Seventh Circuit has noted, "This is not fine prose nor, by itself, terribly clear. It would appear to have been drafted by lawyers." Bourke v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 159 F.3d 1032, 1037 (7th Cir. 1998).