Opinion ID: 579260
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Idea-Expression Distinction

Text: 18 Defendants next argue that Eales' plans do not qualify for copyright protection because they are an unprotectable idea. This argument is also meritless. While the copyright statutes do not allow an author to obtain a monopoly on an idea itself, an expression of an idea can be protected. See Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. (11 Otto.) 99, 25 L.Ed. 841 (1879). Eales' plans laid out the location and sizes of numerous features of model home # 3, and thus her ideas were fixed in tangible form. That is all the copyright code requires. See 17 U.S.C. § 102(a); Kern River Gas Transmission Co. v. Coastal Corp., 899 F.2d 1458, 1463 (5th Cir.1990) ([P]rotection is extended to an expression of an idea fixed in tangible form, but not to the idea itself regardless of the form in which it is fixed.). Eales won damages because defendants copied the plans she drew, not the idea she created.