I agree with Peter. The original work and the derivative work are separate cases.
On Mon, Sep 10, 2018 at 10:42 AM Peter von Kaehne <ref...@gmx.net> wrote: > On Mon, 2018-09-10 at 09:54 -0400, Tom Sullivan wrote: > > First, take Matthew Henry's or Calvin's commentaries. They are way > > out > > of copyright to say the least. Now some publishers may add OCR text, > > comments, footnotes, etc. These are copyrightable. Am I correct in > > thinking that the original text itself could be safely made into a > > module? Surely I am, for these modules are out there. Or am I > > missing > > something? > > Yes, the original text can be made a module, any later edition not, > unless it without addition or editing simply copies an older public > domain edition. > > With this in mind we will e.g. publish critical editions of the NT from > Westcott Hort, but not the newest Aland. > > > Secondly, there are those who publish images of old works and > > manuscripts. They claim copyright to the images in some cases. At > > the > > same time, if one does not publish the image, but only the bare > > original > > text, which is not copyrightable, that should be OK for a module. Am > > I > > correct? I should note that I have seen many cases of republished > > old > > works that have a copyright label, but it seems to me that they > > copyright can only apply to the modern additions. > > While pictures are copyrightable, I presume using the pictures to > transcribe the bare text would make a PD document. Our WLC is something > of that kind. Someone somewhere put fingers on keyboard and typed the > bare text in. > > > Thirdly, [..] > > In other words, even if a module maker has a > > legal > > right, it may not be worth the risk in the view of the Sword > > community. > > Am I correct in my impression that this is a factor? > > Yes, this is a risk and yes this risk makes us double cautious. In > general Bible publishers are kind folk and do not like to sue, but of > course they could. FWIW the last time I had to pull a text due to > erroneous publication as public domain I was uploading within days a > new module with footnotes, crossreferences and the like, significantly > improved upon the prior one which was text only. The Bible society in > question had coupled their request to pull the old module with an offer > of an improved text. But we still do not want to risk this. > > Peter > > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org > http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel > Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page >
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