Mailing List Archive

On 26/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> To what extent is this true under US law?
>
> The claim to ownership of a scan from 1665 is odious. Perhaps it's just me.

Do remember, of course, that only a trivial proportion of these works
are from 1665! Nothing published in the last seventy years is likely
to be safely out of copyright (as new scientific material is rarely
posthumous, and scientific journals don't tend to go in for reprints
of old stuff), and you have to go back to about 1860-70 before you're
safe assuming PD without checking the author's details.

(Before that, or for any where you can be sure as to when the author
died - transcribe away, Macduff...)

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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On 9/26/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> > To what extent is this true under US law?
> >
> > The claim to ownership of a scan from 1665 is odious. Perhaps it's just me.
>
> Do remember, of course, that only a trivial proportion of these works
> are from 1665! Nothing published in the last seventy years is likely
> to be safely out of copyright (as new scientific material is rarely
> posthumous, and scientific journals don't tend to go in for reprints
> of old stuff), and you have to go back to about 1860-70 before you're
> safe assuming PD without checking the author's details.

We could go back to 1800 and there would still be a fair bit of stuff
which is what we are interested in.

--
geni
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Possible all issues of this [1] magazine are in PD. Or not? o.0

[1] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1776-1886)
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/(jsvx5u45yc5wc42ndessfljn)/app/home/journal.asp?referrer=parent&backto=linkingpublicationresults,1:120135,1<http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/%28jsvx5u45yc5wc42ndessfljn%29/app/home/journal.asp?referrer=parent&backto=linkingpublicationresults,1:120135,1>


On 9/26/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/26/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ... so are we allowed to upload them to Commons while we're waiting?
> >
>
> wikisource would be more logical for the most part. You should be sure
> something is public domain where you are and in theUS before uploading
> though and in the UK currently caselaw that I know about says it
> isn't.
>
>
> --
> geni
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>
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On 9/26/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto@gmail.com> wrote:
> Possible all issues of this [1] magazine are in PD. Or not? o.0
>
> [1] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1776-1886)

Some of the newer stuff may not be.
--
geni
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Hum.. sure.

Anyway, now I'm trying to download with HTTrack the most oldest magazines
and most oldest issues to my personal computer. But I don't have conditions
to share this backup copy to someone, this is a personal computer in a ISP
that don't allow running of server softwares.

On 9/26/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/26/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Possible all issues of this [1] magazine are in PD. Or not? o.0
> >
> > [1] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
> (1776-1886)
>
> Some of the newer stuff may not be.
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
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>
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On 9/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To what extent is this true under US law?
>
> The claim to ownership of a scan from 1665 is odious. Perhaps it's just
> me.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> On 26/09/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: "Hurst, Phil" <Phil.Hurst@royalsoc.ac.uk>
> > To: <jwales@wikia.com>
> > Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:34:56 +0100
> > Subject: Royal Society Digital Journal Archive
> >
> >
> > Dear Jimmy
> >
> > It has come to our attention that there is some confusion regarding the
> > copyright status of the Royal Society's digital journal archive.
> >
> > The entire digital archive is covered by copyright. This mean that
> > systematic downloading and hosting by third parties is prohibited.
> >
> > Thank you for your attention.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> >
> >
> > Phil Hurst
> > Publisher
> >


I've not followed the Wikimedia-UK discussion, but bear in mind that the
archives, which were just completed and released, are only freely available
to the community until November 2006. After that, they will be included with
the Royal Society's journal packages, which are not cheap (though more
reasonable than many equivalent publishers):
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1365

So I can understand the publisher being upset if there is systematic
downloading occuring; they've put a great deal of time, energy and money
into producing this archive which they hope to market to libraries and thus
keep their publishing business alive. This is less feasible if all these
issues are on Wikipedia. IANAL, but I expect if someone *else* (you or me)
wanted to go and do the work of scanning and indexing themselves, the
Society would have a more difficult time claiming copyright, as the text
itself is probably in the public domain. The intellectual property comes
with the work of arrangement, cataloging and transferring to a new medium.
As far as I know, this is the case (or claimed case, anyway) with many
digital archives of old material in the U.S.

-- Phoebe
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On 27/09/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:

> The intellectual property comes
> with the work of arrangement, cataloging and transferring to a new medium.
> As far as I know, this is the case (or claimed case, anyway) with many
> digital archives of old material in the U.S.


Turns out it isn't, largely; or it'd be *quite* a stretch to claim
someone couldn't reproduce a scan because you'd arranged and
catalogued it along with the slavish copying that explicitly doesn't
create a new copyright. In any case, Commons would promptly reorganise
it.


- d.
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On 9/27/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've not followed the Wikimedia-UK discussion,

If you had you would have run across this link:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm

Which will give you some idea what people are talking about.

> but bear in mind that the
> archives, which were just completed and released, are only freely available
> to the community until November 2006. After that, they will be included with
> the Royal Society's journal packages, which are not cheap (though more
> reasonable than many equivalent publishers):

We have enough uni students that we could likely still get our hands
on them if we needed to.

> So I can understand the publisher being upset if there is systematic
> downloading occuring; they've put a great deal of time, energy and money
> into producing this archive which they hope to market to libraries and thus
> keep their publishing business alive.

University libraries are already pretty much forced to buy their
product. I suspect this is aimed at a different audience.

> This is less feasible if all these
> issues are on Wikipedia. IANAL, but I expect if someone *else* (you or me)
> wanted to go and do the work of scanning and indexing themselves, the
> Society would have a more difficult time claiming copyright, as the text
> itself is probably in the public domain.

"Hi we are wikipedians we would like to scan all your old texts. No we
have no experience of scanning or preservation. Odd they hung up." In
any case I adressed the isses of textual content through suggesting
OCR scans. Although that leaves pictures such as what appears to be a
case of cyclopia in a colt in one of the early journals.

> The intellectual property comes
> with the work of arrangement, cataloging and transferring to a new medium.
> As far as I know, this is the case (or claimed case, anyway) with many
> digital archives of old material in the U.S.
>

see the link at the top and this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.
--
geni
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phoebe ayers wrote:

> So I can understand the publisher being upset if there is
> systematic downloading occuring; they've put a great deal of
> time, energy and money into producing this archive which they
> hope to market to libraries and thus

Is this a new part of copyright law that I haven't heard of, where
not only sweat-of-the-brow but also tear-in-the-eye is sufficient
to prohibit copying of century old texts?

> wanted to go and do the work of scanning and indexing
> themselves, the Society would have a more difficult time
> claiming copyright, as the text itself is probably in the public
> domain.

*Claiming* copyright (where none is due) is never difficult.
Scammers, publishers and libraries do it all the time. Truthful
people call this copy*fraud*, because it just isn't *right*.

> The intellectual property comes with the work of arrangement,
> cataloging and transferring to a new medium.

Not at all! With cataloging come database rights[1] that expire
after 15 years. But this is not copyright. And the transfer to a
new medium is not an intellectual effort.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_rights


--
Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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On 9/28/06, Lars Aronsson <lars@aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> Is this a new part of copyright law that I haven't heard of, where
> not only sweat-of-the-brow but also tear-in-the-eye is sufficient
> to prohibit copying of century old texts?

Well UK law does have the moral rights bit but that is unlikely to
appy in this case.

>
> *Claiming* copyright (where none is due) is never difficult.
> Scammers, publishers and libraries do it all the time. Truthful
> people call this copy*fraud*, because it just isn't *right*.

In this case there is an argument to be made that under english and
welsh law the scans are covered by copyright so the message at the
start of this thread is reasonable.

> Not at all! With cataloging come database rights[1] that expire
> after 15 years. But this is not copyright. And the transfer to a
> new medium is not an intellectual effort.
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_rights

Under UK law you can probably also pick up 20 years for rearrangement
of text you do any of that (under typographical arrangements).

--
geni
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On 9/27/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I can understand the publisher being upset if there is systematic
> downloading occuring; they've put a great deal of time, energy and money
> into producing this archive which they hope to market to libraries and thus
> keep their publishing business alive.

It was probably a bit silly to make it all freely available then.

On 9/28/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/27/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
> > but bear in mind that the
> > archives, which were just completed and released, are only freely available
> > to the community until November 2006. After that, they will be included with
> > the Royal Society's journal packages, which are not cheap (though more
> > reasonable than many equivalent publishers):
>
> We have enough uni students that we could likely still get our hands
> on them if we needed to.

There was a discussion on a similar issue on the OTRS list recently.
Even if there is no copyright in the material from the archives, the
Society may have contractual rights against people who access the
material from subscription services.

I would want to read the terms of use for the subscription very
closely before I started uploading things accessed through a
subscription.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain@gmail.com
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Quote below first posted to <wikimediauk-l.Wikimedia.org>

Below are two extracts from an article from the THES (Times Higher
Education Supplement) Friday 22nd September 2006.

If this is a research, then fine. But I am told that Wikipedia is not
in the business of original research.

Also, Wikipedia is non commercial, but derivatives, such as
Answers.com are not, thanks to the GFDL.

"This is not what Wikipedia is about."

Gordo



***

Ambiguous copyright law catches out scholars

Publishers and galleries are charging unnecessarily. Jessica Shepherd
reports

Academics are being incorrectly told to hand over thousands of pounds
to use works of art, literature and music in their research, a report
has revealed. The study by the British Academy criticises those
copyright holders who wrongly charge scholars in the name of the law.
Many publishers and art galleries have failed to grasp that copyright
law does not apply when material is to be used for private study,
criticism, review or non-commercial research, the report points
out. It argues that the demands of copyright owners hinder scholarship
in the humanities and social sciences. The British Academy hopes to
lobby the Government to make copyright law clearer for publishers and
academics with the publication of its study Copyright and Research in
the Humanities and Social Sciences.

[...]


Stephen Navin, chief executive of the Music Publishers' Association,
said: "Our members are not trying to mislead academics. Copyright law
is complicated...."

[...]

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly@pobox.com///


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On 10/3/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
> Quote below first posted to <wikimediauk-l.Wikimedia.org>
>
> Below are two extracts from an article from the THES (Times Higher
> Education Supplement) Friday 22nd September 2006.
>
> If this is a research, then fine. But I am told that Wikipedia is not
> in the business of original research.
>

This is largely irrelivant since this would not be the area of law the
wikipedians would be looking to use.

--
geni
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