> "Fair use" is a legal concept that applies, albeit with great vagueness, to > use of items protected by copyright. It is irrelevant to material in the > public domain.
Quite correct Howard, both as to vagueness and public domain. But where it becomes even more vague is when someone compiles items that are in the public domain and publishes them as an "edited" collection and copyrights that collection as a book. I am not an attorney, and I think it is an arcane segment of the law that most attorneys couldn't answer. But there was in England (and may still be), and in the Commonwealth of Virginia (the state), a Court in Chancery. Put more directly, a court where "equity' is assessed. I remember a friend who could always answer any question I asked about situations in baseball, I though him a genius until I found out that he had been trained, and served, as an umpire. The rules of baseball are a very thick book developed over more than a hundred years. His answer to me was this. "If you want to guess the rule figure out what is fairest to both teams". Best, Jon
