Re: [h2o-discuss] who don?

[Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net>]

Alex Chudnovsky wrote:
> 
> >2)at
> >http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/articles/05soft.html
> >see a story on the new alliance of MIT and
> >Microsoft. buried in the details is some
> >vague statement of how MS is supposed to
> >help MIT with their Electronic Shakespeare
> >Archive.  this is the same archive that
> >couldn't get permission from the Folger
> >Shakespeare Library to place images of
> >his folio texts on the web, according to
> >what we heard May 20.
> 
> What was actualy the problem? It is my understanding that nothing
> that Mr Shakespeare has written could be copyrighted,

considering the extent to which Mr S "plagiarized" 
other playwrights and writers, perhaps this is a
good idea anyway. (i mean this in jest--but it is
really quite the same as with Disney and Microsoft--
once it gets taken out of the public domain who knows
how it gets back--although copyright is not supposed
to extend to the original material when a derivative
work is created, in practice it is hard to determine
that, and so modern scholarly editions come with new
copyrights.)

however, something like a web edition of shakespeare
would eventually get into copyright problems because it
would be strange to stop putting up material after 1922
--there have been a couple of critical revolutions
since then in S scholarship.

> so is the problem with gaining actual access to the old
> folio texts to scan them?

yes, as I heard it. again, the problem is not strictly
copyright, but an overly strict interpretation of 
intellectual property rights.  archives generally 
charge for access, and scholars pay that out of their
grants. then, when each photo is used, you pay more
to the archive for that "Courtesy of Folger Archives"
cutline.  it matters not that the thing you are
reproducing the photo of is not under copyright, it
is the act of reproduction that is licensed this way.

archives are hard up for money and don't see why they
should give away their material, naturally, when they
can sell it to businesses.

i ran into this problem when i asked the Concord (MA)
"Free" Library for access to any Hawthorne material.
i'd have to pay $50 up front, then $10 for each photo
reproduced. when i mentioned that i wanted to put it
on a web page, they were baffled and wouldn't allow
that--it would interfere with their income. so i had
to find some other place with the same material.

unfortunately, many libraries are going in the same 
direction, i fear.  a recent NYT article on a Stanford
librarian discussed quite a few schemes in which he is
"partnering" with high tech companies to make the
library into a profit center.

perhaps it will end up with the sort of cross-licensing
practice that goes on with patents and copyrights in
general. that would exclude little guys like me.
(and i am already excluded from some, just because i
went around them and published the material without
paying them, i expect--this sort of shunning can be
as powerful as are demands for payment or copyright
suits--what is the difference between that and a
protection racket by gangsters.)

now, as far as the legality of reproducing old photos
on the web, i understand that in a NY federal case
a decision was made under British law that if the
original was not under copyright the photo of it
could not be either.  i don't know what impact that
has on the big photo archives--most of them are owned
by billg now aren't they?

anyway, this whole issue of old photos scared me
enough to cause me to take off my site a book that
contained photos from 1928 newsreels--the book was
in the public domain, but i could not find out who
owned copyright if any to the photos. ordinarily i'd
just wait for the nasty lawyer's letter, but with
the NET act in mind, i didn't want to lose all my
computers for five years just to find out who
owned the copyright.  so i took the book off.

eventually the law and archive practices will catch
up with modern technology. but it may turn out in
the end to favor big businesses so much that little
guys like me are excluded from the web.

> 
> -Alex

-- 
"Eric"    Eric Eldred      Eldritch Press
mailto:EricEldred@usa.net  http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
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