[Matticus_Rex]

Yeah, I'm willing to bet that metaphor gets called out as ludicrous by a higher court, as it has broader implications across types of editorial expression that break down when examined.

The marble from which a sculpture is carved is not itself a copyrighted work, and if we imagine it as having copyright protection, to the extent it's recognizable after editorial expression it'd have to qualify as fair use itself.

[dragonwriter]

Both the more general premise (a work must not be an infringement of someone else’s work to be a work subject to copyright) and the more specific premise (court decisions are subject to copyright in the United States) in your argument for why verbatim selection from a court decision is not analogous, for copyright, to a sculptor carving from a block of material are wrong, though.

[zozbot234]

> Yeah, I'm willing to bet that metaphor gets called out as ludicrous by a higher court, as it has broader implications across types of editorial expression that break down when examined.

It's not ludicrous at all. Whether a work of "selection" from an existing source can be copyrightable in its own right would probably have to be judged on pretty much a case-by-case basis, but even in the context of "selecting" from a ruling there are almost certainly many cases where that work is creative and original enough that it can sensibly be protected by copyright.