Copyright covers "expressions" of ideas and as such covers the AMA's descriptions. Theoretically, if you wrote different descriptions, they would not be covered by the AMA copyright. However, the AMA has been very aggressive in defending their monopoly on the codes so they might threaten a community project. There is also the issue of the codes themselves. Even though you can't copyright lists of numbers (codes)... the famous "telephone directory" case, the AMA might try to claim that they own the numbers also.
/Mark --- In openhealth@yahoogroups.com, Rod Roark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That leads me to ask: does the AMA claim copyright on the CPT codes > themselves, or just on the descriptions of the codes? If the latter, > I think there would be a lot of merit in a community project to > create and maintain new descriptions. I've been told that the AMA's > descriptions are not very physician-friendly. > > Rod > www.sunsetsystems.com > > On Saturday 09 December 2006 10:18, 80n wrote: > > This reminds me of a similar situation in the UK with postcodes (their > > equivalent of zip codes). Unlike the US where zip codes are in the public > > domain, the British Post Office owns the postcode database and protects it > > agressively. > > > > An enterprising group of people recently started an initiative at > > www.FreeThePostcode.org to "reverse engineer" the postcode database by > > getting people to record their own postcode and geographic location on the > > web-site. So far they have not been closed down by the post office. > > > > I'm wondering if anything like a similar approach could work with CPT codes? > > > > 80n >
