On 25 Jul 2006 at 14:21, Andrew Stiller wrote: > > On Jul 25, 2006, at 6:29 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > > > On 20.07.2006 Andrew Stiller wrote: > >> Under US copyright law, the only thing Saur can copyright about > >> such a collection of PD material is the collection itself--that is, > >> the selection and ordering of the contents. If you don't copy that > >> (that is to say, the whole damn collection, or a *really* > >> substantial portion of it) you are totally in the clear--and in the > >> right too. > > > > Not that I am any expert on this, but I think that there are > > exceptions for this kinds of prints, especially if no other edition, > > facsimile or engraved, exists. This may very well count as the very > > first publication (even if individual pieces have been in print in > > the past or present), and it could be, that the library gave the > > publication rights to Saur. In that case you may very well be > > violating their copyright by photocopying from the facsimile. > > Under US law, mere ownership of an MS conveys no intellectual property > rights in it, and first publications of PD material are copyrightable > only insofar as something new (not including typography and layout) is > added to what may be found in the MS. . . .
I could be wrong here, Andrew, but I thought recent case law changed this in the US. There was a great deal of coverage in the NY Times about the problems the new court decisions were causing for those publishing monographs that were based on private, unpublished correspondence. I'm pretty certain that US law in regard to unpublished MSS is now the same as Europeant law, i.e., that the MS owner holds copyright to its contents, and you can't publish without their permission. And, yes, this is a terrible restriction for scholars who've been accustomed to not having this limitation on their research. > . . . The copyright in such an edition > belongs to the creator of that edition absolutely, and does not > require the approval of the library holding the MS. I have published > numerous such editions, and believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I don't have a citation handy on this, but I think this has changed in the last 10 years. > It is considered polite to ask libraries before publicly reproducing > PD material from their collections, and to give them due credit in > writing for the usage--but there is no legal obligation whatsoever to > do so. The question in Kim's case would be whether a US publisher has to ask permission to publish the contents of an unpublished MS held by a European library. At the very least, I'd think it equally politic to have permission to do so, regardless of whether the letter of copyright law requires it or not. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
