Copyright and licences

German copyright lawyers borrow a phrase from the purse: die kleine Münze, literally the small change. It names the modest end of what the law protects — a catalogue text, a plain instruction leaflet, a simple tune — works that only just clear die Schöpfungshöhe, the threshold of originality, and are protected all the same. The image is well chosen: a small coin is still money, and a text of little artistic weight is still a work. The phrase declines like any adjective and noun, so a leaflet may zur kleinen Münze gehören, belong to it. In everyday German the same two words mean loose coins and nothing more; the legal sense turns up only where protection is being argued about. The rest of the list follows a work from its author through the rights that can be granted, the limits the law sets on them, and the moment it becomes gemeinfrei.