Word.ws English Dictionary

uncopyrightable

uncopyrightable adjective: ineligible for copyright.

Adjective

uncopyrightable (not comparable)

  1. Ineligible for copyright.
    • […] The four criteria that Congress, courts, and theorists have traditionally employed to distinguish the copyrightable from the uncopyrightable are: […]1984, MJ Touponse, “Application of Copyright Law to Computer Operating System Programs: Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin”, in Connecticut Law Review, page 665
    • […] Keeton, however, resolved that it was the idea/expression dichotomy that forms the boundary line between the copyrightable and the uncopyrightable, […]1994, R VerSteeg, “Jurimetric Copyright: Future Shock for the Visual Arts”, in Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, page 125

Noun

uncopyrightable (plural uncopyrightables)

  1. That for which no one can obtain copyright.
    • Intrinsic state doctrines are further condemned by Sears and Compco’s second principle for their tendency to extend the equivalent of copyright protection to statutory uncopyrightables.1969 January, Paul Goldstein, “Federal System Ordering of the Copyright Interest”, in Columbia Law Review, volume 69, number 1, Columbia Law Review Association, Inc., page 71
    • Indeed, Judge Hand himself admitted that the harshness of a complete denial of protection for statutory uncopyrightables was a persuasive element in the alternative line of thought.1974 April, Dane J. Durham, “Goldstein v. California: Validity of State Copyright under the Copyright and Supremacy Clauses”, in Hastings Law Journal volume 25 (1973–4), page 1201

Forms of uncopyrightable

pluraluncopyrightables

Origin of uncopyrightable

From un- + copyrightable.

Questions about uncopyrightable

What does uncopyrightable mean?
Uncopyrightable means ineligible for copyright.
What part of speech is uncopyrightable?
Uncopyrightable can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near uncopyrightable in the dictionary

  1. uncopy
  2. uncopyable
  3. uncopyedited
  4. uncopying
  5. uncopyrightability
  6. uncopyrightable
  7. uncopyrightables
  8. uncopyrighted
  9. uncoquettish
  10. uncoquettishly
  11. uncord

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: uncopyrightable (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “uncopyrightable.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/uncopyrightable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.