[Wikipedia-l] Copyright Question - Catholic encyclopedia

[Ray Saintonge]

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