Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Does that fact that the pre-1923 magazines are in the US public domain necessarily mean that these scans are? If I take a photograph of the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre, it's my photograph, and I have the right to control its distribution, even though the image in the photograph is in the public domain.
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The Mona Lisa is in the public domain? I'd swear it is the property of the gov't of France.
edit: no, wait, it is both :/
Anyway, here's a relevant precedent: Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. - 36 F. Supp.2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. (1999) - based on the facts of that case, which was a collection of high resolution photographs of famous antique oil paintings which Corel used in a commercial product for which they were sued by the maker of the photographs, who lost their case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgem..._v._Corel_Corp.
It is not possible to obtain new protection by re-publishing a work that has already lapsed into the public domain, unless something transformative is done, and then protection only exists as to the new material created by the transformation.