An entertaining discussion - let's see if I understand the essence of
the thread...
Facts:
High resolution photos (of the Dead Sea Scrolls) were recently released
under an Israeli copyright.
(Obviously this does not constitute copyright of the scrolls themselves.)
A great deal of technical and creative effort went into the preparation
and conservation of the scrolls before photography began.
Scholarship - the interpretation of the relationship of fragments to the
entire document
The photographers made many technical and creative decisions before
obtaining the final images that were released.
Differences of opinion:
What exactly has been protected under copyright?
Pro: the added value - preservation, conservation, scholarship,
enhancement, etc.
Con: nothing
Unanswered questions:
What rights restrictions were placed on the copyright? Was it "all
rights reserved", attribution only, etc?
Why was the decision made to release the work under copyright rather
than a Creative Commons license?
Is this an adequate summation?
On 9/29/2011 6:11 AM, foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 5:58 AM, Nikola Smolenski<smolensk(a)eunet.rs> wrote:
>> > On 29/09/11 04:12, Anthony wrote:
>>> >> You need to reread what I said. ?I was not making a pro-copyright argument.
>> >
>> > You need to rewrite what you wrote so that it reflects what you meant.
>> > You were making a pro-copyright argument.
> Let me be clear, then. I have no position on the copyrightability of
> this image, neither in the US nor elsewhere, neither on whether or not
> this image is copyrighted, nor on whether or not it should be
> copyrightable.
>
> I also don't see why copyrightability matters. Surely even if the
> images are copyrighted they can be used by WMF under the doctrine of
> fair use. And even if they are not copyrighted, it's not clear to me
> how the underlying images can even be obtained without committing a
> felony of exceeding authorized access to a computer.
>