Dear John,
since I've been in the publishing business for some years,
here some first hints:

Copyright on any text elapses 70 years after the author's dead according to EU, American 
(and Swiss :-)) law . Text afterwards are free to be published by anyone who wishes 
to do so.
BUT since any translation or critical edition is considered to be a work on it's own,
it is also protected until its editor/translator is dead for 70 years.
Before that date is reached, the publisher or the author/editor/translator itself is in 
possession of the rights and is free to sign (or to refuse to sign) a license of agreement 
with you about any form of further publication. Contact the rights departement of the publisher 
to know wether the publishing house or somebody else is owner of the rights.
(Texts which are published in the 19.th century should therefore be free anyway...)

Greetings!
Niklaus Schatzmann
Zurich

>(1) Does anyone have advice on how to deal with copyright questions? In
>particular, we are negotiating with a local archive, who are in support of
>the project, but who also have certain qualms about absolutely free access
>to their holdings (not, I should add, that we're planning to put the whole
>archive on line). I'm looking for a way to reassure them, and to deal with
>the question of access and copyright
>(2) I have thought about putting on line some documents already edited in
>nineteenth-century volumes (eg Hudson & Tingey's history of Norwich), where
>I'm assuming that the copyright has elapsed, and hence one is free to
>reproduce translations and transcriptions on the web. Any thoughts here on
>whether or not I'm correct?
>(3) I'd also be grateful for *any* advice from anyone who is, or has been,
>involved in similar projects, about possible pitfalls or other areas to
>consider.

I hope you'll forgive me for posting this to a list that is concerned with
medieval topics, when my questions are more than a little tangential. Where
they do link up to our 'common purpose', of course, is in the public
provision of medieval materials via the web...

I'm happy to receive replies off-list, unless there are others out there who
also want to eavesdrop on the answers (in which case, please say so
a.s.a.p., to prompt any replies to be directed to the list itself).

many thanks in advance
cheers
john arnold


Dr John Arnold
School of History
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ