Ian you're right I overspoke.
If I scan a document, I don't create a new copyright for that, as I'm merely doing a mechanical action, which shows no originality.
On the photograph issue, I agree with the way you framed it. If a person merely takes a picture of some copyrighted object that does not create a new copyrightable object.
I think my point was that JSTOR, rightly or wrongly, is asserting copyright over the images they've taken. Not over the underlying paper documents, which are PD. So the mere fact that JSTOR has digitized a document doesn't create an overwhelming burden for us. The document itself can still be put on wikisource as pure text or even as someone else's image, just not as a copy of the image from JSTOR. That would be the way I'd approach it.
Will Johnson
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