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snookums · 02-13-2008, 04:53 PM

Cornell has a lot of historical documents online such as the Constitution of the Confederate States. They also have the first couple issues of Scribner's Magazine as scanned images available online. I'd like to put these into e-format to sell, but they state on their webpage that these materials are made available only for non-commercial purposes. How can they do that? As far as I understand copyright, anything before 1923 is in the public domain. Do they really have any legal standing to say that I can't use the copies of Scribner's or any of the other historical documents in a commercial manner. I could buy copies off of eBay and scan them myself. It would be harder to find a source for the treaties and documents, but I could. So how could they tell the difference, and how could anyone claim copyright on treaties and documents of the U.S. unless they were translated or added to in some way.

02-13-2008, 04:53 PM	#1
snookums Connoisseur Posts: 81 Karma: 100 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: Kindle	Question about copyright? Cornell has a lot of historical documents online such as the Constitution of the Confederate States. They also have the first couple issues of Scribner's Magazine as scanned images available online. I'd like to put these into e-format to sell, but they state on their webpage that these materials are made available only for non-commercial purposes. How can they do that? As far as I understand copyright, anything before 1923 is in the public domain. Do they really have any legal standing to say that I can't use the copies of Scribner's or any of the other historical documents in a commercial manner. I could buy copies off of eBay and scan them myself. It would be harder to find a source for the treaties and documents, but I could. So how could they tell the difference, and how could anyone claim copyright on treaties and documents of the U.S. unless they were translated or added to in some way.