In order to qualify for protection, a work must be an expression with a degree of originality, and it must be in a fixed medium, such as written down on paper or recorded digitally. The idea itself is not protected. That is, a copy of someone else's original idea is not infringing unless it copies that person's unique, tangible expression of the idea. Some of these limitations, especially regarding what qualifies as original, are embodied only in case law (judicial precedent), rather than in statutes.
If it is possible to answer this question, answer it for me (else, reply "unanswerable"): If a work must include a degree of originality, what else mustn't it contain to be protected?
unanswerable