Thank you, Eugene!!! This should make any further debate on this pointless.
RT
______________
Roman M. Turovsky
http://turovsky.org
http://polyhymnion.org
> I have a friend (one who shall remain nameless) in the US copyright office
> of the Library of Congress with whom I have recently discussed this
> issue. As far as I can discern, nobody has any rights to any facsimiles of
> public-domain manuscripts. The library to hold them can charge exorbitant
> fees for access if they desire, but once the material is in the world at
> large, it is legally accessible/reproducible by all. A publisher can hold
> the rights to any forward or introductory text drafted for a reproduction,
> or any edits/corrections they add, but that's about it. I stand by my
> previously expressed opinion: "if an activity is legal, feel free to do it
> (if its morality is suspect, you're old enough to decide for yourself
> whether or not you should feel guilty afterwards)." This is one of those
> cases where copying from a published facsimile may be legal in the US (and,
> as such, I wouldn't hold it against anybody who did so), but I personally
> would feel a little immoral in wantonly xeroxing the lot of it. Thus, I
> would be more likely to buy the facsimile from whichever publisher
> endeavored to bring it back to the world. To wantonly copy from facsimiles
> only increases a publisher's risk in printing facsimiles, making publishers
> less likely to do so in the future...and I personally don't want to have to
> pay "extremely expensive" fees to a holding library to access such stuff
> when publishers stop taking that risk.
>
> Best,
> Eugene
>
>
> At 08:16 PM 10/10/2003 +0200, Peter Paeffgen wrote:
>> Eugene, thank you very much for bringing this discussion back into low
>> water again!
>> But please, what is the legal situation in the case of a facsimile of
>> manuscripts or printed editions of public domain material? I published a
>> reprint of the Georg Leopold Fuhrmann lute-book (published 1615, reprinted
>> by Jungh?l-P?gen-Sch?er 1975) and someone asked me the other day for
>> permission to publish the music in a newly engraved (or computerized)
>> edition online. The transparencies for printing the facsimile came from the
>> Biblioth?e Royale in Bruxelles and they were extremely expensive. But
>> what did the library have rights on? The music was and is public domain,
>> the book itself could be legally protected ... but for the printer and
>> publisher and not for the library. The Biblioth?e Royale finally had real
>> copyrights on the transparencies they sold to me. The lute player who wants
>> to publish a corrected and newly engraved edition of the pieces has no
>> problems I think. But if he reprinted our reprint of the original print he
>> gets into troubled water. But who will sue him, the Biblioth?e Royale in
>> Bruxelles or me?
>> Good reliable reprints are expensive, Matanya, that's for sure. We know,
>> how many facsimiles have been published which have been done from
>> xerox-copies and not from the original sources. Dangerous! I mean, the word
>> comes from ancient Europe (sorry, I'm in politics as well) and means "make
>> it similar" (from latin: fac simile) but it really means "make it as
>> similar as possible/almost identical". Printruns are small (and getting
>> smaller because so many "lutenists" use xerox-copies), so cheap facsimiles
>> of lute sources will not be possible as long as the scholarly and
>> aesthetical standards are that high.
>> I mean, as a lute-student I complained about the Minkoff-prizes but ... well.
>> Peter
>>
>> ++++++++++++++
>> Dr. Peter P?gen, Sielsdorfer Str. 1a, D-50935 Koeln
>> FON: ++49-221-430 17 27, FAX: ++49-221-943 98 64
>> Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
