> If I've "learned" Harry Potter to the level where I can reproduce it verbatim, the reproduction would be a copyright violation.
By your logic anyone with good enough memory violates copyright law just by act of remembering something.
By your logic anyone with good enough memory violates copyright law just by act of remembering something.
It’s perfectly legal to memorize a book, type up a copy from memory, and to even print out a copy that you keep for yourself. But as soon as you start trying to sell or distribute copies, even for free, now you’re breaking the law as written.
It isn't a problem until it spits out a similar enough copy.
Copyright violation doesn't have to be verbatim; taking a 4k movie and reencoding it to 320x200 before distribution isn't legal.
Previously, artists needed to prove they hadn’t heard the song that they were accused of infringing. That was virtually possible because there’s a lot of music you could hear anywhere, even just a car driving by. Artists continuously lost these court cases.
Nowadays the burden of proof is luckily no longer on the defendant. But I think that only changed a decade ago or so, thanks to some efforts by music industry lawyer Damien Riehl. I know, ridiculous.
Reproduction? Yes.
If you write down a sizeable quote, that can be a copyright violation.