Dear Digital Classicists,
A group of us have been discussing this privately, and agreed to post
the query to the Medieval and Classical lists. Dot's formulation below
(to DM-L) is probably better than mine would have been, so I'll just
copy it wholesale (for "medieval" read "classical"). I'll wait for
replies on list before giving my interpretation of this stuff.
Best, Gabriel
----- Forwarded message from [log in to unmask] -----
From: Dot Porter <[log in to unmask]>
Hi All,
I'm wondering if anyone on the list can help me figure out some issues
having to do with the copyright dates that apply to publications in
the EU. Let's say that I've found an edition of a medieval text
published in an EU member country in 1973, the author is alive, and I
want to publish it on my website. How do I figure out if this is under
copyright protection or in the public domain?
Referring to the 1993 EU copyright law
(http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31993L0098&model=guichett)
the critical points are:
Article 5
Critical and scientific publications
Member States may protect critical and scientific publications of works
which have come into the public domain. The maximum term of protection
of such rights shall be 30 years from the time when the publication was
first lawfully published.
If this is the law, then any edition published before 1975 (even if
the author is alive) is fair game.
However, Article 1, point 1 says this:
1. The rights of an author of a literary or artistic work within the meaning
of Article 2 of the Berne Convention shall run for the life of the author
and for 70 years after his death, irrespective of the date when the work is
lawfully made available to the public.
(The Berne Convention defines literary or artistic work as "every production
in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or
form of its expression" - which is pretty broad (
http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/2.html). Translations,
adaptations, and arrangements count, as do encyclopedias & anthologies.)
So how do I decide if the edition in my hand falls under Article 1 or
Article 5? Is it pretty straightforward (any edition of a public
domain text falls under Article 5), or is there some ambiguity? I fear
the question comes down to, exactly how much do you have to do to a
public domain text (Article 5) before it becomes a new original text
(Article 1)? What about critical apparatus? Editorial introductions?
Is it possible for different parts of the same book to fall under
different copyright protections (the edited text vs. the apparatus and
introductions)?
Thanks,
Dot
--
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Dot Porter, Program Coordinator
Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities
University of Kentucky
351 William T. Young Library
Lexington, KY 40506
***************************************
----- End forwarded message -----
--
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Gabriel BODARD
Inscriptions of Aphrodisias
Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
Kay House
7, Arundel Street
London WC2R 3DX
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)20 78 48 13 88
Fax: +44 (0)20 78 48 29 80
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