Copyright of derivative works from archive.org?

[etienne66]

I have downloaded a book from Archive.org that was scanned by Microsoft. I have taken time to proofread and attempt to match the original book as closely as possible in the production of a Mobipocket book. I've even included the scanned copy of the cover for the cover of the book. I've already spent about a week or so on this and have a decent product. I've already corrected perhaps a thousand or two OCR errors and I intend on further proofreading and figure it will take me about another week of my personal time. In other words I have put a lot of effort into creating a quality product for my own personal use.

Near the front of the book Microsoft added the following: "Digitized for Microsoft Corporation by the Internet Archive in 2008. From University of California Libraries. May be used for non-commercial, personal, research, or educational purposes, or any fair use. May not be indexed in a commercial service." and at the bottom of every page, except the front and back covers, it states: "Univ Calif - Digitized by Microsoft ®"

The book itself is in the public domain and as far as I can tell you can not buy a copy of the book. Would it be legal for me to sell this copy on Amazon.com or some other ebook website or am I limited (or even allowed) to giving it away on a site such as this?

I know that if I owned a copy of this book and had scanned it in myself that there would be no question that I could do this, but given the source of the scans I don't won't to violate someone's rights, especially Microsoft. Not that I have any respect for Microsoft , but I don't want to tangle with their lawyers.

Thanks,
Etienne66

[HarryT]

I'm no expert, but my take on the situation is that those specific set of scans are "owned" by the University of California, and cannot be re-published.

However, if you've created a new copy of that public domain work, and merely proof-read it against those scans, then your book is yours to do with as you wish. I really wouldn't use the scanned cover, though, if I were you - that could get you into trouble.

Philosophically, though, I have to say this: you have used a public resource to create your book. Why not "give something back" to the eBook world and make your book available for free on MR, as so many other people have created books freely for your benefit?

[etienne66]

Thanks HarryT.

I've put a post on the archive.org forum so we'll see what they say.

I have no objection to "give something back" to the community, but technically the book is already available in PDF form. Of course that PDF is 14 MB as compared to my version which is only 269 kB and will be even smaller if I have to strip the cover image. More than likely I will upload it to MobileRead in the end. I was just trying to see if I could make some money for the 2 weeks work I performed on this. Given the title I don't think I'd make much money.

I've also noted that Amazon sells several Project Gutenberg books on their website. There is even one called the "Project Gutenberg Dictionary" which they want $14.95 for. I downloaded the sample and it looks like they simply stuck the text file in a mobipocket wrapper without any extra formatting. At least I've formatted my book and I wouldn't want it to be sold for more than $1.00.

In consideration of giving back to the community, I've thought about joining the Distributed Proofreaders @ www.pgdp.net. However I want to see them proofread "The Century Dictionary" including the images in a mobipocket compatible format. If done properly I think this would be something a lot of people could appreciate.

I might was well tell you the title of the book I have worked on. It is "The Mantle and Other Stories" by Nikolai Gogol and translated by Claud Field. The book is available at http://www.archive.org/details/mantl...tori00gogorich

Thanks,
Etienne66

[Elfwreck]

If the text is in the public domain, you should be able to sell it; you just can't prevent someone else from selling or giving away another version of the text. (How much the formatting is copyrighted is a blurry area of the law. It's agreed that it's copyrighted, and so someone else couldn't legally grab your version & sell it... but it's unclear whether they could grab your version, throw it into Calibre, and sell whatever output they derived from that.)

You're also allowed to both sell it & give it away; you could put a free version at Mobileread and a $1 at Amazon. Certainly Sony & Amazon both sell versions of public domain works that are available here for free (and the ones here are better, which makes buying from them even less desirable). If you charge for yours, people could know it was available elsewhere for free but prefer to pay to have access to it through Whispernet.

[etienne66]

I found my answer at http://www.archive.org/details/unive...rnia_libraries & http://www.archive.org/details/msn_books

On the Univ. of Cal. page it states: "Books sponsored by UC (in other words, the ones UC paid for the scanning) have no additional restrictions beyond the underlying works. If the work is public domain then these images and derivative works are public domain. Books supplied from the UC libraries but sponsored by another organization may have restrictions."

And more importantly on the Microsoft page it states: "Microsoft nor the Internet Archive assert no additional rights beyond what may be due to others."

So I guess I will be posting this in the near future on Amazon and any other site I can get on.

Now that I know where to look about the copyrights on their site, there may be a few more books I might proofread, but there is no way I would be able to do "The Century Dictionary" myself. The first volume is located @ http://www.archive.org/details/centurydict01whit and is over around 1000 pages of tiny 3 column print, but it has some very nice illustrations as well.

"The Century Dictionary" would take an effort like that of the Distributed Proofreaders.

Thanks,
Etienne66

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by etienne66

And more importantly on the Microsoft page it states: "Microsoft nor the Internet Archive assert no additional rights beyond what may be due to others."

Well done for finding that. Note that that bit's hard to find while the "no commercial use" is up front. They are indeed just trying it on with the "no commercial use" clause. The book's in the public domain. They add nothing original to the book by scanning it. So scans and the text on the scans are also (at least in the US) in the public domain, following the case of Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd v. Corel Corp. http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright...Supp2d_191.htm

It seems all institutions try this one, putting in clauses restricting what can be done with copies of 2D works. Accurate 2D copies of 2D works have no originality are are not protected by US copyright law.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If you charge for yours, people could know it was available elsewhere for free but prefer to pay to have access to it through Whispernet.

And while the savvy among us are aware that all of the Mobipocket books at MobileRead are available through the Whispernet -- by downloading the Mobipocket Download Guide -- there are many who only look for books at Amazon.com.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If the text is in the public domain, you should be able to sell it; you just can't prevent someone else from selling or giving away another version of the text. (How much the formatting is copyrighted is a blurry area of the law. It's agreed that it's copyrighted, and so someone else couldn't legally grab your version & sell it... but it's unclear whether they could grab your version, throw it into Calibre, and sell whatever output they derived from that.)

You're also allowed to both sell it & give it away; you could put a free version at Mobileread and a $1 at Amazon. Certainly Sony & Amazon both sell versions of public domain works that are available here for free (and the ones here are better, which makes buying from them even less desirable). If you charge for yours, people could know it was available elsewhere for free but prefer to pay to have access to it through Whispernet.

Let's say we have a well done HTML on PG. I run it through Calibre to generate a Mobipocket version and I want to copyright it. If I copyright it, can someone else do the same thing and get the same eBook and also copyright it or is it too late because I've done it first?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Let's say we have a well done HTML on PG. I run it through Calibre to generate a Mobipocket version and I want to copyright it. If I copyright it, can someone else do the same thing and get the same eBook and also copyright it or is it too late because I've done it first?

AFAIK, copyrights aren't like patents; they're not exclusive to the first person that registers them. If two publishers independently choose the same font & layout for their public domain works, both editions are copyrighted to their respective publishers. If two authors come up with the same exact poem, both of them own the copyrights. (I have trouble imagining this for poems of any notable complexity, but could see formulaic, simple poems assigned to high school students occasionally having exact duplicates.)

It could be troublesome to prove in court which one was being copied, if the case came up. OTOH, I don't think that formatting copyrights have ever gone to court for books. (They have for websites.)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It seems all institutions try this one, putting in clauses restricting what can be done with copies of 2D works. Accurate 2D copies of 2D works have no originality are are not protected by US copyright law.

I hope one of these days their doing so results in lawsuits massive enough to make them deeply regret this practice.

Doesn't the US have some law against making fallacious legal pronouncements?

- Ahi

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

AFAIK, copyrights aren't like patents; they're not exclusive to the first person that registers them. If two publishers independently choose the same font & layout for their public domain works, both editions are copyrighted to their respective publishers.

No. If the work is in the public domain then it cannot be copyrighted. And the state of Oregon tried and failed to make a copyright claim based on formatting, so that's out too.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Let's say we have a well done HTML on PG. I run it through Calibre to generate a Mobipocket version and I want to copyright it. If I copyright it, can someone else do the same thing and get the same eBook and also copyright it or is it too late because I've done it first?

You cannot copyright a public domain work, unless you add content to it (eg an introduction, or footnotes) and, even if you claim copyright on those, the copyright only protects that extra content, not the original text.

If you create a "non-trivial layout" for a public domain work, you can claim what's called a "typographical copyright" for your specific edition of that work; in most countries, that lasts for 25 years from the date of publication of your edition. All that does, however, is provide protection for your edition - it doesn't stop someone else from copying the public domain text from it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

No. If the work is in the public domain then it cannot be copyrighted. And the state of Oregon tried and failed to make a copyright claim based on formatting, so that's out too.

I don't know what the situation is in the US, Nate, but in the EU at least, "typographical copyright" - protection for a specific edition of a public domain work - is perfectly valid and binding. It lasts for a fixed term of 25 years from the date of publication.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You cannot copyright a public domain work, unless you add content to it (eg an introduction, or footnotes) and, even if you claim copyright on those, the copyright only protects that extra content, not the original text.

Which is why many spineless gits out there (sorry--as you may have noticed, this stuff irks me) put copyright notices for the public domain work, very close to a splendidly vague statement about corrections, footnotes, editing, et al.

Resulting in a situation where you have no guaranteed way of being able to extract the public domain content out of the full manuscript with any degree of certainty that you haven't left something copyrighted in there.

Another practice that should result in the ruin of a few prestigious and high-profile publishers and/or universities out there.

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

No. If the work is in the public domain then it cannot be copyrighted. And the state of Oregon tried and failed to make a copyright claim based on formatting, so that's out too.

That's great to know! (Do you happen to have a link, or know the name of the Oregon case? I'd love to throw that in my copyfight collection.)

I keep seeing public domain works with copyright warning notices on them, especially in ebooks. Fictionwise certainly doesn't say "you can freely share our public domain works." And when Wowio.com had free downloads of PDFs, I got a number of public domain works from them, and they're all tagged with a copyright notice.

The Analysis of a Complete Act of Thought
John Dewey, 1859 – 1952
Copyright © 2008 by WOWIO LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form without written
permission of the copyright owner.
The information in this book is furnished for informational use only, is
subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a
commitment by WOWIO LLC. WOWIO LLC assumes no responsibility for
any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this book.

The ebook is an "edited" version, which means it's excerpted from the original (1910 book How We Think), reformatted, has occasional bracketed phrases to cover for removed sections, and there's a paragraph of introduction at the beginning.

I have no idea what they think is covered by their copyright... the 40-word intro paragraph? The layout? The use of his sidenotes as paragraph titles? The one- to five-word bracketed phrases?