On 26/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 26 Sep 2006, at 18:00, geni wrote:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm
Interesting that they applied "United Kingdom" law. In England we have English Law :-)
UK law is pretty consistent on some issues, and I believe IP law is generally among them - remember that copyright law, in its first modern incarnation, dates from *after* the Acts of Union. So talking of UK law here is pretty reasonable.
The legal question is whether the scans have any creative input. In the earlier case of maps, where different pages must be aligned and scales brought up to date, the answer is clearly "yes". In the case of a simple photocopy, I'd say the answer was "no". If the Royal Society has cleaned up the images, I'd say they do have copyright.
There's an open question as to whether skill and effort in the scanning *process* comes into it - scanning a printed volume from the 17th century is a very different beast from photocopying a current journal, and making comparisons to photographic skill is not entirely unwarranted.