10-01-2016, 03:54 PM | #46 | |
Chief Bohemian Misfit
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Revising and correcting errors in a text is a "creative element" -- I don't know how you can possibly argue that it's not.
And, further, as that copyright lawyer's site said (as I quoted earlier)... Quote:
It's beyond me why you want to argue against something that's in your favour -- let alone that's against common sense, that any person deserves credit for the efforts they've put in. And those efforts that I've put into these texts might not be overtly obvious (without poring over the entire text, word-for-word, and comparing them with the original 16th/17th century texts) but they most certainly aren't insignificant -- indeed, quite the contrary, they are significant, genuinely scholarly textual emendations. My revisions (especially) are copyrightable, that's what the law says very clearly -- never mind that it just makes common sense that if any person puts genuine time and effort into revising, correcting, improving, etc. any public domain work then they deserve credit (and copyright) for having done so. What you're advocating isn't protecting peoples' rights to disseminate public domain texts, but rather you're advocating violating very clearly copyrightable works. You're saying to any scholars and other researchers out there "Go ahead, put in a ton of time and effort into coming up with a more authoritative edition of an author's work, so that the rest of us can just up and steal your work for our own use, because the crappier original source material that you started with was in the public domain." I just can't understand why you're advocating against copyright (when and where it very clearly it exists, both legally and common-sensically) and instead advocating for violating copyrightable works, simply because doing so works in your favour. At least, I really can't think of what else your motivation would be, Harry. |
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10-01-2016, 04:05 PM | #47 |
frumious Bandersnatch
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We are not discussing what we want or we would like, but what we believe the law means. An it seems we disagree. I can't understand why you can't understand that. But since neither of us are lawyers, and we are not in court, whatever we believe is moot. Let's please stop this discussion (or continue it somewhere else, this is not the place for it).
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10-01-2016, 04:16 PM | #48 | ||||
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Quote:
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Go and talk to a copyright lawyer and see which of us is right. |
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10-01-2016, 04:23 PM | #49 | |||
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EDIT/POSTSCRIPT: Sorry, I do promise to stop replying on this thread, but I just have to respond to this... Quote:
More significantly, even most trained humans wouldn't know that "rn'wd" (in Sonnet #73) shouldn't be corrected to "ruin’d" (as most editors correct it as), but rather to "rwn'd" (although that does mean "ruin’d," of course). Only a person who is well-familiar with obscure, early printed English texts would have any clue about that. Anyway, whatever. Last edited by Psymon; 10-01-2016 at 04:43 PM. |
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10-02-2016, 10:28 AM | #50 |
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Just for the record, I'm in complete agreement with HarryT and Jellby.
No number of corrections to the electronic text to make it reflect the original more closely will give the resulting text a new copyright. |
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10-02-2016, 10:53 AM | #51 | |
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It may appear grossly unfair that someone can put a huge amount of effort into something, but not have any rights in what they've created as the result of that work, but that is indeed the situation. Hence my suggestion at the start of this discussion that you add a short introduction to your book. The introduction won't prevent anyone from entirely legally copying the Shakespearean texts, but it will prevent someone from simply reselling the entire book. Let me add, by the way, that the sample pages you've shown us from your book look great, and I wish you every success with it, regardless of how you decide to distribute it. Last edited by HarryT; 10-02-2016 at 10:57 AM. |
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10-02-2016, 11:16 AM | #52 | |||
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But in my book (no pun intended), this has been a genuinely scholarly endeavour of mine, above and beyond just merely taking some public domain text, making no revisions to it whatsoever, and simply "making it look nice." Quote:
Because my copyright on my well-informed, knowledgeable revisions isn't worth a damn around here (even though, by law -- never mind common sense and fairness -- it actually is). :/ PS. To pdurrant... Clearly you misunderstand what I've been doing here. I've been making corrections to the original, non-electronic 16th/17th century texts (which are full of errors). This has been, indeed, a "new" and "original" effort on my part, one that most publishers haven't done, they just transcribe those errors verbatim instead. Last edited by Psymon; 10-02-2016 at 12:22 PM. |
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10-02-2016, 12:54 PM | #53 |
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Might I make a practical suggestion, Psymon? I've been running this ebook library, as well as creating ebooks, for many years, and although (as you very correctly note) I'm no lawyer, I do have a good practical knowledge of how copyright law works in both the UK and the US. However, clearly I'm not going to persuade you that what I'm telling you is correct. Go and talk to the people at Project Gutenberg. Nobody knows more about the law pertaining to the public domain in the US than they do, and if you choose not to believe me (which I have absolutely no problem with, BTW), perhaps you'll believe what they tell you? Come back here when you've done that and let us know what their view of the matter is.
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10-02-2016, 12:54 PM | #54 | |
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Believe me, everyone commenting in this thread understands what you claim to have done, and has some appreciation the time, effort and knowledge that would be required to perform that task. But no amount of 'sweat of the brow' generates a valid copyright. Only creativity. You do, of course, have copyright in your introduction, it being your own creative work. |
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10-02-2016, 01:02 PM | #55 | |
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Of course, if you post it here it means you allow MR users to download it. You may claim or reserve any other right. But there are two points to keep in mind: - Your claims may be void before the law if they refer to something that's effectively public domain. Some of us believe this will be the case for the text of the book, you believe otherwise. It doesn't matter, that doesn't affect what happens when you upload it to MR or elsewhere. - Regardless of the validity of your claims, it is always possible that someone will take your book, copyrighted or not, and distribute it or sell it. MR plays no part there. Whether or not you are right, if this happens you'd have to fight for your claimed rights, and you may win or lose. The only situation where MR may have something to say is if you upload it (here or elsewhere) and someone else wants to upload some other book derived from yours. Then we'd have to decide whether this second book is infringing some copyright or not... But let's talk about that when and if it happens. |
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10-02-2016, 01:39 PM | #56 | |
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10-02-2016, 07:35 PM | #57 | |||
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Okay! Only just a few moments ago I got accepted into an online discussion forum specifically about digital copyright issues, and have yet to post my question(s) there, but once I do (and have received some responses) I'll share those.
In the meantime, I just did some related searches regarding whether or not one can copyright the design elements of an ebook, and I found some stuff that might -- if nothing else -- provide some food for thought. These first couple of links are referring to the HTML/CSS codes for websites, but surely the same applies for ebooks as well. From... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...t-infringement Quote:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/copyri..._copyright.htm Quote:
https://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creat...otecthtml.html And here, on the question of whether or not "derivative" works of source material that's in the public domain can be copyrighted, this site deals specifically with ebook publishing... http://blog.kunvay.com/copyright-101...-self-publish/ Quote:
Anyway, I just thought the above might be of interest, if only in the interim here -- as I said above, if/when I get some replies from that digital copyright forum, I'll share whatever else I've learned from there over here. Last edited by Psymon; 10-02-2016 at 07:39 PM. |
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10-03-2016, 02:23 AM | #58 |
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Let's be clear about definitions here.
Your book as a whole cannot be reproduced without your permission, because you've written an introduction for it, and that's unquestionably protected by copyright, but there's nothing to prevent anyone from copying the text of the Shakespearean texts from your book and re-using those, because the Shakespeare remains Shakespeare - you have not made any creative changes to it. A derivative work is something like "West Side Story" or <shudder> "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", where a public domain work has been transformed into a completely new work. You have not transformed Shakespeare's work into something different: it is Shakespeare's original work, with the only changes being corrections to the text (which, as we've already explored, do not gain you a new copyright). So, can you put a copyright notice in your book? Yes, certainly. Will that prevent anyone from re-using one (or all) of the Shakespearean texts in your book? No, it won't, although it will prevent anyone from simply copying the book as a whole. Last edited by HarryT; 10-03-2016 at 04:52 AM. |
10-03-2016, 06:39 AM | #59 | |
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So, do you feel your changes are enough to say you are the author of the poems, and not Shakespeare? The answer to that is, in my opinion, the answer to whether or not it is a derivative work. |
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10-03-2016, 08:10 AM | #60 |
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Harry and Jellby, yes, I can see your points about the definition of the word "derivative" -- although I do still see a difference between claiming "copyright" on an emended piece of public domain text and then also claiming "authorship." Being an author and being an editor aren't the same thing, of course.
But at any rate, I guess I'll wait to see what answers I might get (hopefully) on that copyright law forum, see what they think about this question. I thought that the other links I provided put an interesting slant on things, though, that one's HTML/CSS code is copyrightable, and that even if someone wanted to "steal" my text (and were technically within their rights to do so), they would be violating my copyright if they took my code. In that regard, every book posted here posted in the MR forums is copyrightable by the ebook creators -- not for whatever public domain texts that they contain, but rather for the coding of the files that make them up. That is, assuming that what those various websites is indeed true (and for what it's worth, I didn't find any sites that said no, your code is not copyrightable). |
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