Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Copyright Free or not?
Message-ID: <32320@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 9 Jun 89 01:07:50 GMT
References: <7650008@hpwrce.HP.COM> <41140@bbn.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 37

>We definitely have a semantic problem.  The problem is distinguishing a
>*work* from an *embodiment* of a work.   If I take PD info and incorporate
>it into a book, that *presentation* of the PD info is now copyrighted by me.
>*copyrighted*.  That means you cannot *copy* _my_ presentation.  If you come
>out with a work that looks like mine, you better be prepared to demonstrate
>that you didn't get YOUR presentation by copying MINE.

If you want to publish a public domain source, you go back to the original
source and create a new edition of it. If you, for instance, decided to
publish a new edition of Dante's Inferno, you could. If you did it, however,
by publishing a new edition of the Ciardi translation, you'd be in trouble.
Dante is public domain (he's dead). The Ciardi translation isn't.

Relating that back to the Dover stuff, it's public domain (actually, a lot
of it isn't public domain -- much of the Dover material is commissioned by
them and published with an 'unlimited re-use' license). However, their
material is controlle by a copyright so that you can use it in your own
publications but not go into competition with their own books by putting
together clip-art books. They way they'll get you on this is something
called a "bunny" -- a bunny is a piece that looks like all the other public
domain pieces, but which they had specifically commissioned for inclusion in
the book. If that piece shows up in your book, they've got hard evidence
that you violated their copyright on their clipart book.]

So if you want to play with their material, do it by their rules. Or make
sure you don't publish their bunnies (which requires at least as much
research as finding the original public domain sources in the first place,
which is the whole point).



Chuq Von Rospach      =|=     Editor,OtherRealms     =|=     Member SFWA/ASFA
         chuq@apple.com   =|=  CI$: 73317,635  =|=  AppleLink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

You are false data. Therefore I shall ignore you.