Hello,
how do we treat the Catholic Encyclopedia? (www.newadvent.org)
The articles are from a 1912 encyclopedia and should therefore be free, but the website does claim a 1999 copyright for the online edition.
As it might be in many cases difficult to prove that someone copied from newadvent.org, it is rather obvious if typos are preserved.
Can we use such an article as basis for copyediting?
Best regards,
jens
At 09:48 PM 7/23/02 +0200, jens wrote:
Hello,
how do we treat the Catholic Encyclopedia? (www.newadvent.org)
The articles are from a 1912 encyclopedia and should therefore be free, but the website does claim a 1999 copyright for the online edition.
As it might be in many cases difficult to prove that someone copied from newadvent.org, it is rather obvious if typos are preserved.
Can we use such an article as basis for copyediting?
I looked at this. I think the information on this page might be helpful:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/00002a.htm
I looked at one article, St. Peter Claver and then wrote a stub and used the newadvent page as an external link (I actually know quite a bit about him, as I visited Cartagena once and had a nice experience at his shrine there.) In the article there are links. As written with the links included I would say the articles are copyrighted. Certainly the pages of individual letter links are. It does say that the articles were transcribed rather than revised from the 1913 edition which is in the public domain. Direct copying of those articles either from a written source or from that web page should be alright. I notice down at the bottom of the article it gives a name of the person who "transcribed" the article. No mention is made of a revision.
Bottom line is I would not copy the source code but I would say the text can be copied without substantial risk. I don't think typos count anyway.
Fred Bauder
BTW:
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch?tn=catholic+encyclopedia&pn=e... lopedia
Fred Bauder wrote:
At 09:48 PM 7/23/02 +0200, jens wrote:
Hello,
how do we treat the Catholic Encyclopedia? (www.newadvent.org)
The articles are from a 1912 encyclopedia and should therefore be free, but the website does claim a 1999 copyright for the online edition.
As it might be in many cases difficult to prove that someone copied from newadvent.org, it is rather obvious if typos are preserved.
Can we use such an article as basis for copyediting?
I looked at this. I think the information on this page might be helpful:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/00002a.htm
Bottom line is I would not copy the source code but I would say the text can be copied without substantial risk. I don't think typos count anyway.
Fred Bauder
I've looked at the site which Fred referenced, and it includes the following: "Knight chose the 1913 15-volume set because the later editions are still under copyright protection." Clearly Knight was aware of the copyright issues when he was making his effort. Copyright depends on contributing some measure of original work. Leaving scanning bugs or even intentional bugs to trick the unwary is not original work, nor is cleaning them up.
The frames and other environment written and supplied by New Advent are of course copyrightable, Simply putting a blanket copyright notice on something means to me nothing more than "Copyright to the extent that it can be copyright". No person uploading such a page can be reasonably expected to detail which parts of a page are copyright and which are not. For the reader, he has to use his own common sense in making his determination.
Eclecticology
I agree with Ray. I'm not uncomfortable with using this as a source.
However, it would also be nice to drop them a note asking permission, and pointing out to them (kindly, in a friendly manner, of course!) the tenuousness of their copyright claim. If they want to make a stink about it, this will give them the opportunity to do so now, before we've used much of this material. If they don't care, then possibly we'll get an email from them saying that it's fine anyway, thus eliminating any worries.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I've looked at the site which Fred referenced, and it includes the following: "Knight chose the 1913 15-volume set because the later editions are still under copyright protection." Clearly Knight was aware of the copyright issues when he was making his effort. Copyright depends on contributing some measure of original work. Leaving scanning bugs or even intentional bugs to trick the unwary is not original work, nor is cleaning them up.
The frames and other environment written and supplied by New Advent are of course copyrightable, Simply putting a blanket copyright notice on something means to me nothing more than "Copyright to the extent that it can be copyright". No person uploading such a page can be reasonably expected to detail which parts of a page are copyright and which are not. For the reader, he has to use his own common sense in making his determination.
Eclecticology
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