On 8/16/2011 12:51 PM, wjhonson(a)aol.com wrote:
I don't believe your claim that you can take
something which is PD, make an exact image of it, slap it up in a new work of your own
(enjoying copyright protection automatically) and then claim copyright over that PD image
in your work.
Copyright applies to the presentation of your work, showing creativity. An image that
you reproduce faithfully shows no creativity and can enjoy no new copyright, 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 about copyright
violation. PD doesn't change simply because a PD item is republished. The
presentation of the item is copyright, not the item itself.
I personally agree with
that. However, it often costs more to prove your
right to use something in court than to knuckle under if an aggressive
rights owner comes after you. This is especially true when you are
planning to distribute your own work worldwide - just getting a letter
from the publisher telling you that they either give you the right to
use an image or have no rights over that image is necessary before your
work will be accepted by a publisher or distributor.
An additional minor quibble. At least in the US a person does*not* need to reapply for
copyright each time they revise an item. Copyright is an automatic process, merely by the
fact of presenting something in a fixed media. You*can* file a copyright. You do
not*need* to file a copyright, in order to enjoy copyright protection under the law.
I also agree with you - except that the registered version has an
ironclad protection you can protect in court while revised versions
afterwards may not be so easy to protect unless they are also
registered. It becomes a kind of "chain of custody" issue. If I were to
create something original and show it to no one else for 50 years until
I published it and died 5 years later, which would apply to the
copyright expiration date - date of author's death, date of creation or
date of publication?
In the real world there are many examples of published books and
screenplays that could clearly be seen as derivative - even plagiarized
works from one or more unpublished sources. This is a big deal within
the Writer's Guild and the reason for their online system of protecting
manuscripts by registering before a work is shown to others.
One of the most (in)famous books in American Religion is "The Book of
Mormon", parts of the first edition of which were (alleged to be)
plagiarized from the "Manuscript Story" and arguably violated the 1790
Copyright Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Spalding The work
has been revised at least nine times (not counting translations) to make
it "fit" the theology of the modern day church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon