On Oct 24, 2007, at 7:40 PM, John Howell wrote:
There is nothing ambiguous or arguable about graphic copyright under U.S. law: it does not exist, and never has.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to suggest that graphic copyright exists under U.S. law. I meant to suggest that it's not always clearly established whether an edition is really an edition (which gets full protection) or is merely a facsimile (which gets no protection).
For example, suppose I take a public domain piece and retype it in Finale but with the absolute minimum of editorial alteration. That is, I do my best to copy its layout, beaming, spacing, etc. Does my edition qualify for copyright, or is it legally equivalent to a digital scan?
Someone mentioned earlier an edition that claims copyright protection based on nothing but the page layout, which is what prompted my comment. Many would argue that page layout really isn't a creative addition and doesn't deserve protection.
As you probably know, recent copyright case law is pretty generous in seeing editorial content where only slight graphic adaptation has been made. That's why anyone who makes an edition with even the slightest content alteration will claim copyright on the entire book. At the same time, 99.9% of these claims are never tested, and when they are it's quite possible that any given judge will see things otherwise and throw out the copyright. Thus the security of any such claim is not predictable and can easily come down to who has the best lawyers. This, in turn, makes defendants who are in a weaker financial position prey to bullying by others who are better financed.
That's what I had in mind when I said the situation is "ambiguous and arguable".
Anyway, the observation was merely a caveat to my main point which was going in the opposite direction. I think we agree on that.
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