Thus spake "Keith Ralston"> : >> 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.
I don't think this is the case. There has been a lot of controversy about this, but generally speaking derived works are only considered copyrightable if they involve significant artistic input by the creator. Sometimes, this is taken to ridiculous lows: for example, sheet music has the type-setting copyrighted! However, the information itself cannot be copyrighted - if I were to take a copy of Chopin sheet music and play it, the fact that I got it from copyrighted typesetting would be irrelevant, since the information I used was public domain. I would thus own the rights to the performance. In this case, the information extracted from most modules is all in the public domain. The exceptions might be the strongs-numbered modules. The bottom line is that the OLB files are generally NOT creative works, but databases containing public domain works. (All this silliness is a perfect example of why copyright law needs to be completely revamped. Intellectual "property" is a ridiculous concept.) Patrick -- Patrick Narkinsky - Apprentice Pastor, Hope Community Church "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." - Chesterton