On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Keith Ralston wrote: > > Both of these guys seem to think they get a copyright for being first to > > put these PD works into electronic form. > > I'm not sure, but I believe this works like translations of pd works. The > _translation_ is copyrightable. Of course, you have to include the > copyright notice in your work.
Copyright is granted for creative works (for the purpose of encouraging the production of additional creative works). Translations are copyrighted because they are creative works, requiring lots of right-hemispheric cognitive work. Electronic editions of PD works are still PD. Changing the format like this does not require creativity, just good OCR or untiring fingers. Adding markup is likewise not creative if it approximates that of the original. Essentially the only way to make a PD work copyrightable by making an electronic edition is to make changes to it that are creative (i.e. to make a bad copy). In that situation, only the additions are copyrighted and the underlying text remains PD (and may be retrieved by rolling back alterations). This is similar to works in a collection. If you collect a bunch of PD texts and put them in a collection (in print, on CD, or whatever) you do get a copyright for the collection--after all it took some creativity to decide which texts should be included and how to order them. However, the texts themselves remain PD. For more info from the source, I would recommend reading through the US Copyright Office circular 14, regarding derivative works, which is available online at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf . --Chris