Chris knows better than most of us and certainly me that the matter of IP and AI is FAR from settled. I am aware of close to 100 ongoing major litigations regarding the topic. It's only going to get more complicated as AI becomes THE way that information is acquired and disseminated. Off topic but take music for example. People are "writing" songs using AI and AI is performing the songs using amalgamations of human vocals with a bit of this and a bit of that. Combine Chet Atkins with Slash on guitar and Dolly Parton with Lady Gaga on vocals etc. When a machine is harvesting all of this at a scale that is hard to fathom, IP will be "borrowed". The ongoing questions are who sets the guardrails and how do guardrails work when the machine is capable of overcoming the guardrails at will.
Back to the album pages. If you think that everything is fair game for AI, how is it that Scott publishing continues to claim 1, 2, 3, 4...... as protected property (IP)? Imagine where this is going with AI. What if AI built Siegel Power Search or Stamp Smarter or this forum and the owners had no control. Do you still trust the info in Power Search? You don't now know who is guarding the henhouse. Who do you complain to when the certificate info is wrong or Stamp Smarter has manipulated data?
I know that all of this is far beyond creating some album pages for personal use. It is interesting to discuss the bigger picture though.
I asked AI this:
Quote:
Is the Scott stamp catalog numbering system copyright protected?
AI answered this:
Quote:
Yes, Amos Media (publishers of the Scott Catalogue) claims copyright protection over the Scott stamp numbering system. They actively enforce this system as a proprietary asset, requiring other businesses, databases, and website creators to obtain a commercial license to use it.
The legal reality surrounding the copyright is complex:
• Enforcement and Licensing: Scott aggressively protects its intellectual property. In the past, they have sued or threatened legal action against other catalog publishers (such as Krause Publications) and popular online reference sites, forcing them to either secure a license or remove the numbers entirely.
• The Legal "Gray Area": Under general U.S. copyright law, strict facts, lists of data, or purely logical numbering systems (like a chronological sequencing) are often not copyrightable. However, because Scott's editors use creative judgment to categorize variations, errors, and decide what qualifies as a "valid" stamp, their system arguably possesses enough original, intellectual creativity to be legally defensible.
• Lack of a Definitive Court Ruling: Because major legal challenges—such as the Scott vs. Krause lawsuit—have historically been settled out of court, a definitive judicial precedent striking down the copyright does not exist. This legal uncertainty, combined with the high cost of litigation, discourages companies from openly using the numbers without permission.
As a result, the philatelic community universally treats the Scott numbers as legally protected, using universal textual descriptions (country, year, denomination, color) as a workaround if they cannot or do not want to buy a license.
Pot meet kettle.