Is it possible to have any kind of ownership over historical family mottos?
<p>There is a free to browse online database of family mottos related to coat of arms and heraldry etc. As I understand it most of these are historical. To quote from the site (I have redacted the name in case it is not allowed)</p>
<p><em>This is a Free Motto resource center containing approx. 9,000 mottoes transcribed from Elvin’s Mottoes, with added mottoes from [Redacted] own Library and from noted heraldic writers.
The Family Mottoes Resource may not be copied for any reason or any purpose without [Redacted] expressed written permission. ...
RULES OF USE
You may copy up to 10 mottoes for your personal website. A Link to the [Redacted] home page is required. If you don’t have a website, you may copy up to 10 Mottoes for your personal use.</em></p>
<p>While I don't doubt that they have put some work to digitise and publish these online I was slightly surprised that any form of &quot;copyright&quot; can apply here. Can a site really &quot;own&quot; historical family mottos to the degree that they can legally stop people using them?</p>

<p>In US law, historic mottos are no longer protected by copyright, if they ever were. That would include any published prior to 1927 at the moment.</p>
<p>However, short phrases, such as mottos are not protected by US copyroight, even if contemporary. US Copyright Office Circular 33: &quot;Works Not Protected
by Copyright&quot; lists, on page 2, as not protected: &quot;Names, Titles, Short Phrases&quot; and goes on to state:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans, are uncopyrightable because they contain an insufficient amount of authorship. The Office will not register individual words or brief combinations of words, even if the word or short phrase is novel, distinctive, or lends itself to a play on words.</p>
<p>Examples of names, titles, or short phrases that do not contain a sufficient amount of creativity to support a claim in copyright include:</p>
<p>...</p>
<ul>
<li>Mottos, slogans, or other short expression</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>While the <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/86494/17500">answer by Dale M</a> is correct that the collection may be subject to protection as a collection, for this to apply one would need to copy all, or a substantial part, of the collection, surely far more than 10 items..  Moreover, if the method of selection is not original, or the organization is obvious (and the ordering seems to be alphabetical by family name, which is fairly obvious), there may be no copyright at all under the US Supreme Court decision <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co." rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co.</em>, 499 U.S. 340 (1991)</a></p>
<p>That a certain family has used a particular motto is a fact, and like other facts is in no way protected by copyright, whether the use or creation of the motto was hundreds of years ago or last week. A collection of facts can have protection provided that it has originality by virtue of the selection of facts made, or their arrangement.</p>
<p>Under the EU database law, somewhat greater protection is given to the contents of a database than would be under US or UK copyright law. But even under that law, the claims made by this site are probably unenforceable.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.heraldryclipart.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">site heraldryclipart.com</a> make a number of copyright claims which I think are quite invalid. In particular, it claims individual copyright for &quot;newly hand-drawn&quot; images of historic coats of arms. All such images are in the public domain, and a faithful redrawing will not grant any new protection in US or UK law, or I think in EU law or the law of any country that follows the Berne Copyright Convention.</p>
<p>Still a collection copyright might well apply. Anyone planning to use a sizable part of this collection would be wise to consult an experienced IP lawyer.</p>

<h2>Copyright exists in the collection, not the individual mottos</h2>
<p>Historical mottos are probably too old to have copyright protection. However, the site’s choices of which mottos to publish, how and with what translations is covered by copyright in just the same way that an anthology of Shakespeare’s sonnets would be.</p>
<p>That said, after visiting the <a href="https://www.heraldryclipart.com/mottoes.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">site</a>, it seems that some at least of these mottos are contemporary works and therefore protected by copyright.</p>

copyright data-ownership