Copyright: the useful article test

Useful articles are generally not copyrightable (go get a patent!). So how can we tell if something is too useful to be copyrightable? One has to find a separability between the useful part and the artistic part to protect the artistic part.

• Physical separation
  
• Conceptual separability
  
• Goldstein test:
  
  1. separable if artistic part can stand on its own as a work of art as traditionally conceived AND
     
  2. if useful part would be still be useful without the artistic element