Copyright on general questions?

Hi

I'm currently building a database that has alot of questions in it, but it has to be a lot bigger before I can use it with some software that I am also currently building. Questions takes time to think up and write in to my database. That is why I get a lot of inspiration from the internet. But i have come across a problem.

I have found a lot of other sites that do have questions on their page, public available for anyone. I never import any question directly into my own database. I always verify and change them so they conform to my structure, so I to take a lot of inspiration from them, plus I add even more data to the question.

Can I use these questions for my database?

The reason why i ask this is that a question in it self does not really have a ownership. A question like "What is the capital of United Kingdom?" or "How many legs does a scorpion have?" is something anyone can ask or write down.

- Rune

Facts can't be copyright. Wrapping a simple "What is" around a fact most likely doesn't create a copyrightable information in itself.

I'm not sure what you are doing with the nebulous question, but the above is a nebulous answer.

taking the original post one step further

I would actually like to take the original post/question a step further and see what people think.

I am doing something similar and compiling questions, but these are based on medical scenarios. For example:

A 55 year old female goes to the emergency room with medical complaints of XYZ. She has medical procedures ABC performed and they show ZZZ. Based on the symptoms XYZ which of the following diseases is most likely?
A) Disease A
B) Disease B
C) Disease C
D) Disease D

The question above was created independently by myself just this second. There are other books/websites/study guides/etc that ask similar questions with similar medical scenarios and answers. In the end, there are only so many ways you can present a scenario and ask a specific question to test a specific topic, so similarities are inevitable.

How could someone prove that a copyright was not infringed upon (assuming the scenario/question/answers were actually independently created)?
Would there even be a legal case in this example? Let's assume that the questions are not worded identically but do cover the topic and diseases.

I'm very interested in the discussion on what people think. Thanks.

You don't have to prove copyright is not infringed on. The plaintiff has to show that the copyright IS infringed on. As I already stated, the "idea" of something can not be protected by copyright. What will be argued is that either there are sufficient differences that show that one was not derived from the other OR that the information presented is so generic as to not creative work.

I.e., Lidcaine dosage is .5 mg/kg.

What is the dosage for a 220 lb man?
...


Frankly unless you copied that word for word, it would be hard to show any creative infringement.

Where these things usually go wrong is on questions like yours where you explain the answers.
The explanation of why it is disease B and not A or C somehow gets a bit more prosaic than raw facts.