[Foundation-l] copyright issues

[Wjhonson]

The year of publication applies to published material.  The year you make it public, to the public, for public consumption.


Unpublished material, if it enjoys copyright protection at all, would be based on the year of creation.  That however might be a red herring if it, in fact, does not enjoy any copyright protection.  Does copyright protect material not published?

Plagiarism and copyright are seperate issues and should not be conflated, as different approaches apply to each.






-----Original Message-----
From: Robin McCain <robin at slmr.com>
To: foundation-l <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, Aug 16, 2011 2:36 pm
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] copyright issues


On 8/16/2011 12:51 PM, wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
 I don't believe your claim that you can take something which is PD, make an 
xact image of it, slap it up in a new work of your own (enjoying copyright 
rotection automatically) and then claim copyright over that PD image in your 
ork.

 Copyright applies to the presentation of your work, showing creativity.  An 
mage that you reproduce faithfully shows no creativity and can enjoy no new 
opyright, no matter how hard you push your view.  That's it.  Period.

 So I can freely copy any PD image, from any source, and not need to worry 
bout copyright violation.  PD doesn't change simply because a PD item is 
epublished.  The presentation of the item is copyright, not the item itself.
 personally agree with that. However, it often costs more to prove your 
ight to use something in court than to knuckle under if an aggressive 
ights owner comes after you. This is especially true when you are 
lanning to distribute your own work worldwide - just getting a letter 
rom the publisher telling you that they either give you the right to 
se an image or have no rights over that image is necessary before your 
ork will be accepted by a publisher or distributor.

 An additional minor quibble.  At least in the US a person does*not*  need to 
eapply for copyright each time they revise an item.  Copyright is an automatic 
rocess, merely by the fact of presenting something in a fixed media.  You*can*  
ile a copyright.  You do not*need*  to file a copyright, in order to enjoy 
opyright protection under the law.
 also agree with you - except that the registered version has an 
ronclad protection you can protect in court while revised versions 
fterwards may not be so easy to protect unless they are also 
egistered.  It becomes a kind of "chain of custody" issue. If I were to 
reate something original and show it to no one else for 50 years until 
 published it and died 5 years later, which would apply to the 
opyright expiration date  - date of author's death, date of creation or 
ate of publication?
  In the real world there are many examples of published books and 
creenplays that could clearly be seen as derivative - even plagiarized 
orks from one or more unpublished sources.  This is a big deal within 
he Writer's Guild and the reason for their online system of protecting 
anuscripts by registering before a work is shown to others.
One of the most (in)famous books in American Religion is "The Book of 
ormon", parts of the first edition of which were (alleged to be) 
lagiarized from the "Manuscript Story" and arguably violated the 1790 
opyright Act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Spalding The work 
as been revised at least nine times (not counting translations) to make 
t "fit" the theology of the modern day church. 
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon
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