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From: karl@grebyn.com (Karl Nyberg)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Copyright Free or not?
Message-ID: <12066@grebyn.COM>
Date: 2 Jun 89 11:48:14 GMT
References: <5829@microsoft.UUCP> <7650006@hpwrce.HP.COM>
Sender: karl@grebyn.COM
Organization: Grebyn Corp.
Lines: 47

In article <7650006@hpwrce.HP.COM> howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes:
>
>It is not legal to copyright public domain materials. What Dover did
>was to compile a set of free clips, and then sell them. While they
>are counting on the proceeds from the book to pay for the editing
>costs, and make a profit, they do not own the copyright for the
>artwork inside the book. 
>
>An example of this for you:
>
>The US Constitution is in the public domain, and many many copyrighted
>books include the U.S. Constitution. This doesn't mean that the
>book publisher can keep you from scanning in the U.S. Constitution and
>using it as you want, where you want, when you want to, in whole or
>in part. Ir means the book publisher is hoping to make a profit by 
>selling a book which has the U.S. Constitution included in it. 
>
>I'll go you one further. There are publishers who sell the U.S. Constitution,
>and nothing else. Just the original, untouched document reproduced on
>parchment paper. They cannot stop you from doing the same thing. They
>have no copyright on this document. But you have no power to stop them
>from selling it, since no one owns the rights, or rather, the public
>owns the rights.

There's a little leap of faith here that I think is being missed.  As far as
I know, it IS legal to copyright public domain material.  And there is
nothing to prevent somebody else from taking the same public domain material
and publishing it themselves (with their copyright).  HOWEVER, it is illegal
to take the copyrighted material (in the form published) and copy it.  That
is, it would be illegal for you to take the nice parchment copy of the
Constitution that somebody has prepared and duplicate from their work.  You
may certainly go back to the original source and duplicate from that.

Further, if somebody were to ADD something to the document being published
(in this case the Constitution), such as index, cross-references, etc., etc.
this additional material would clearly NOT be in the public domain and
reproduction of their additoin, including supporting material, would also
be subject to copyright protection.

Bottom line - you have to start from scratch just like everybody else does.

-- Karl --

Karl A. Nyberg		karl@grebyn.com, nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
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