[Taxacom] On Copyright

Sat May 12 17:51:34 CDT 2018

Thanks Richard.

Taxacom-ers: First, listen to Willi Egloff and other competent attorneys.

Then, or in addition, consider web searches to get additional information, especially pages that cite statute and (in common law jurisdictions) case law. For example, the following article has references to US case law that concurs with Willi that scanning does not change the copyright status of a public domain work. (This is a US article.)

 Who owns the copyright in scans of public domain works?
 http://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/who-owns-the-copyright-scans-public-domain-works/

Checking on what happens in other jurisdictions would be a separate investigation (one which Willi has already done, see his comments).

My experience is that many people feel quite strongly that they understand copyright law, but actually don’t. There’s a lot of confusion between copyright and right of possession of a copy. There’s also a lot of confusion between rights under copyright statute, and rights subject to contract (including click-throughs and situations involving valid licenses). Images are *not* automatically covered by copyright (in the US); they have to pass the ‘creative expression’ test. There are differences between jurisdictions. And so on. This is not simple stuff; almost as hard as the nomenclatural codes :)

Jonathan

> On May 12, 2018, at 5:52 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> wrote:
> 
> I here forward a message from David Patterson on copyright.
> 
> -------
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
> richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
> 
> From: David Patterson [mailto:patterson.david.joseph at gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2018 4:35 PM
> To: Richard Zander
> Cc: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Copyright
> 
> Richard
> 
> Could I ask that you forward this to Taxacom. It comes from Willi Egloff. He is a copyright lawyer who has addressed issues of copyright as relate to taxonomy -  Egloff, et al. 2014. Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright: The case of biodiversity information. ZooKeys 414:109-135. 10.3897/zookeys.414.7717
> 
> 
> The copyright rules are quite clear in one point: Copyright protection in Europe, in the US and in many other countries lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. In some countries, it is limited to 50 years after the death of the author.
> A work that was published in 1819 is free and has no copyright protection anymore. Everybody can use it as he or she wants to do it. It is not possible to renew a copyright protection that has run out. The digitisation of a free work can never lead to a new protection. It is therefore not true that there is a IP right in the digitised copy.
> 
> What Willi leaves out is that anyone, e.g. Google, can scan an out of copyright work, and can then try to monetize their effort.  They have every right to market the scanned material and to make it available under a license.  But anyone else (e.g. BHL) can digitize the content, and make it openly and freely available, and the e.g. Google will have no recourse.
> 
> 
> Perhaps add the comments that bounced
> 
> Copyright rules are inconsistent - see  Egloff et al. 2014. Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright: The case of biodiversity information. ZooKeys 414:109-135. 10.3897/zookeys.414.7717
> 
> Copyright rules are often misunderstood
> 
> Copyright rules are implemented inconsistently
> 
> And I doubt if this is truly an issue of copyright.
> 
> Willi Egloff is a good copyright lawyer who I have included in the recipients.
> 
> https://www.copyright.gov/ has limited application - i.e. it presents the point of view of a single and not all jurisdictions.
> 
> 
> Paddy
> 
> David J. Patterson
> 
> On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 2:35 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org<mailto:Richard.Zander at mobot.org>> wrote:
> There is lots of information on copyright at
> https://www.copyright.gov/
> 
> 
> 
> -------
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
> richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>] On Behalf Of David Campbell
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 11:28 AM
> Cc: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Copyright
> 
> I ran across a (not too current) reference to British copyright dating relating to the death of the author rather than the date of the publication; sorting out the vagaries of copyright regulation are a definite challenge.
> 
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 3:28 AM, Andreas Gminder <andreas at mollisia.de<mailto:andreas at mollisia.de>>
> wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> as far as I know the copyright expells 70 years after the publication
>> date, not after the author's death.
>> 
>> best regards,
>> Andreas
>> 
>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- From: Francisco Welter-Schultes
>> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 1:32 AM
>> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>> 
>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Copyright
>> 
>> In Germany copyright expells 70 years after the death of the author.
>> For a publication from 1819 we should assume that the authors are
>> slightly more than 70 years dead...
>> 
>> Note that the 1819 work as such is free. This means only that anyone
>> can digitise it. Anyone who digitises a work has the IP rights for the
>> digitised copy. They do not need to provide free access to it. If
>> Google digitises old works, they seem to check if BHL, archive.org<http://archive.org> or
>> anyone provides a free digitised version. If so, then Google offers
>> free access. My observation is that if not, Google does not provide
>> free access to such old works.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Francisco
>> 
>> -----
>> Francisco Welter-Schultes
>> 
> 
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