[Foundation-l] [Wikimediauk-l] [Fwd: Royal Society Digital Journal Archive]

[phoebe ayers]

On 9/26/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To what extent is this true under US law?
>
> The claim to ownership of a scan from 1665 is odious. Perhaps it's just
> me.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> On 26/09/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: "Hurst, Phil" <Phil.Hurst at royalsoc.ac.uk>
> > To: <jwales at wikia.com>
> > Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:34:56 +0100
> > Subject: Royal Society Digital Journal Archive
> >
> >
> > Dear Jimmy
> >
> > It has come to our attention that there is some confusion regarding the
> > copyright status of the Royal Society's digital journal archive.
> >
> > The entire digital archive is covered by copyright. This mean that
> > systematic downloading and hosting by third parties is prohibited.
> >
> > Thank you for your attention.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> >
> >
> >     Phil Hurst
> >     Publisher
> >


I've not followed the Wikimedia-UK discussion, but bear in mind that the
archives, which were just completed and released, are only freely available
to the community until November 2006. After that, they will be included with
the Royal Society's journal packages, which are not cheap (though more
reasonable than many equivalent publishers):
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1365

So I can understand the publisher being upset if there is systematic
downloading occuring; they've put a great deal of time, energy and money
into producing this archive which they hope to market to libraries and thus
keep their publishing business alive. This is less feasible if all these
issues are on Wikipedia. IANAL, but I expect if someone *else* (you or me)
wanted to go and do the work of scanning and indexing themselves, the
Society would have a more difficult time claiming copyright, as the text
itself is probably in the public domain. The intellectual property comes
with the work of arrangement, cataloging and transferring to a new medium.
As far as I know, this is the case (or claimed case, anyway) with many
digital archives of old material in the U.S.

-- Phoebe