On 8/16/2011 12:51 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: > I don't believe your claim that you can take something which is PD, make an > exact image of it, slap it up in a new work of your own (enjoying copyright > protection automatically) and then claim copyright over that PD image in your > work. > > Copyright applies to the presentation of your work, showing creativity. An > image that you reproduce faithfully shows no creativity and can enjoy no new > copyright, no matter how hard you push your view. That's it. Period. > > So I can freely copy any PD image, from any source, and not need to worry > about copyright violation. PD doesn't change simply because a PD item is > republished. The presentation of the item is copyright, not the item itself. I personally agree with that. However, it often costs more to prove your right to use something in court than to knuckle under if an aggressive rights owner comes after you. This is especially true when you are planning to distribute your own work worldwide - just getting a letter from the publisher telling you that they either give you the right to use an image or have no rights over that image is necessary before your work will be accepted by a publisher or distributor. > > An additional minor quibble. At least in the US a person does*not* need to > reapply for copyright each time they revise an item. Copyright is an > automatic process, merely by the fact of presenting something in a fixed > media. You*can* file a copyright. You do not*need* to file a copyright, > in order to enjoy copyright protection under the law. I also agree with you - except that the registered version has an ironclad protection you can protect in court while revised versions afterwards may not be so easy to protect unless they are also registered. It becomes a kind of "chain of custody" issue. If I were to create something original and show it to no one else for 50 years until I published it and died 5 years later, which would apply to the copyright expiration date - date of author's death, date of creation or date of publication?
In the real world there are many examples of published books and screenplays that could clearly be seen as derivative - even plagiarized works from one or more unpublished sources. This is a big deal within the Writer's Guild and the reason for their online system of protecting manuscripts by registering before a work is shown to others. One of the most (in)famous books in American Religion is "The Book of Mormon", parts of the first edition of which were (alleged to be) plagiarized from the "Manuscript Story" and arguably violated the 1790 Copyright Act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Spalding The work has been revised at least nine times (not counting translations) to make it "fit" the theology of the modern day church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
