[Foundation-l] Subject: Re: Dead Sea Scrolls

[Robin McCain]

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 at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAPreJLSd+UH4OvjH_SmreYi7kPmAVo4FrA9qbyxJAE6icwQaRQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 5:58 AM, Nikola Smolenski<smolensk at 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.
>