General Book Uploads Posting Guidelines

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Copyright requires a creative element.

Revising and correcting errors in a text is a "creative element" -- I don't know how you can possibly argue that it's not.

And, further, as that copyright lawyer's site said (as I quoted earlier)...

Later versions or adaptations (e.g., translations, revisions, annotated and illustrated editions) of PD works may be protected by a separate copyright.

I've also added in illustrations, too, which makes my book as a whole copyrightable. Now, I suppose you might argue that I've taken public domain engravings for use in my book, but each and every one of those images has been modified (size, shape, colour and other modifications) specifically for that use. Those are now "new" versions of previously-public domain works as well -- just like the aforementioned Mona Lisa with a moustache penciled in would be copyrightable.

It's beyond me why you want to argue against something that's in your favour -- let alone that's against common sense, that any person deserves credit for the efforts they've put in. And those efforts that I've put into these texts might not be overtly obvious (without poring over the entire text, word-for-word, and comparing them with the original 16th/17th century texts) but they most certainly aren't insignificant -- indeed, quite the contrary, they are significant, genuinely scholarly textual emendations.

My revisions (especially) are copyrightable, that's what the law says very clearly -- never mind that it just makes common sense that if any person puts genuine time and effort into revising, correcting, improving, etc. any public domain work then they deserve credit (and copyright) for having done so.

What you're advocating isn't protecting peoples' rights to disseminate public domain texts, but rather you're advocating violating very clearly copyrightable works. You're saying to any scholars and other researchers out there "Go ahead, put in a ton of time and effort into coming up with a more authoritative edition of an author's work, so that the rest of us can just up and steal your work for our own use, because the crappier original source material that you started with was in the public domain."

I just can't understand why you're advocating against copyright (when and where it very clearly it exists, both legally and common-sensically) and instead advocating for violating copyrightable works, simply because doing so works in your favour. At least, I really can't think of what else your motivation would be, Harry.

[Jellby]

We are not discussing what we want or we would like, but what we believe the law means. An it seems we disagree. I can't understand why you can't understand that. But since neither of us are lawyers, and we are not in court, whatever we believe is moot. Let's please stop this discussion (or continue it somewhere else, this is not the place for it).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Revising and correcting errors in a text is a "creative element" -- I don't know how you can possibly argue that it's not.

I'm afraid it's not creative. It requires no creativity to correct a spelling mistake. It's a purely mechanical process which a trained monkey (who could use a dictionary) could do. Don't take my word for it: ask the good people at PG who spend a lot of time correcting public domain works.

I've also added in illustrations, too, which makes my book as a whole copyrightable.

I think you misunderstood what he's saying. The reason he said that an illustrated version of a public domain text may be subject to copyright is that the illustrations themselves may be copyrighted. E.g., the text of Kenneth Graham's "The Wind in the Willows" is in the life+70 public domain, but the well-known illustrations in that work are not. You do not gain a copyright by adding public domain illustrations to a public domain work.

It's beyond me why you want to argue against something that's in your favour -- let alone that's against common sense, that any person deserves credit for the efforts they've put in.

Because I've been creating ebooks for an awful lot of years, and I know how copyright law works when it comes to material that's in the public domain.

My revisions (especially) are copyrightable, that's what the law says very clearly -- never mind that it just makes common sense that if any person puts genuine time and effort into revising, correcting, improving, etc. any public domain work then they deserve credit (and copyright) for having done so.

I'm afraid that effort alone does not grant copyright, no matter how unfair that may seem. Creativity grants copyright. A mechanical process of comparing a potentially faulty text against a known-good text or a dictionary is not creative.

Go and talk to a copyright lawyer and see which of us is right.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Jellby

We are not discussing what we want or we would like, but what we believe the law means. An it seems we disagree. I can't understand why you can't understand that.

Well, I can't help but understand that -- that's rather apparent.

But since neither of us are lawyers, and we are not in court, whatever we believe is moot. Let's please stop this discussion (or continue it somewhere else, this is not the place for it).

10-4. Roger, over and out.

EDIT/POSTSCRIPT: Sorry, I do promise to stop replying on this thread, but I just have to respond to this...

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid it's not creative. It requires no creativity to correct a spelling mistake. It's a purely mechanical process which a trained monkey (who could use a dictionary) could do.

A trained monkey wouldn't know that the word "bitter" (in Sonnet #91) should, in fact, be "better."

More significantly, even most trained humans wouldn't know that "rn'wd" (in Sonnet #73) shouldn't be corrected to "ruin’d" (as most editors correct it as), but rather to "rwn'd" (although that does mean "ruin’d," of course). Only a person who is well-familiar with obscure, early printed English texts would have any clue about that.

Anyway, whatever.

[pdurrant]

Just for the record, I'm in complete agreement with HarryT and Jellby.

No number of corrections to the electronic text to make it reflect the original more closely will give the resulting text a new copyright.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Psymon

A trained monkey wouldn't know that the word "bitter" (in Sonnet #91) should, in fact, be "better."

More significantly, even most trained humans wouldn't know that "rn'wd" (in Sonnet #73) shouldn't be corrected to "ruin’d" (as most editors correct it as), but rather to "rwn'd" (although that does mean "ruin’d," of course). Only a person who is well-familiar with obscure, early printed English texts would have any clue about that.

You're confusing knowledge with creativity: they aren't the same thing. You may indeed need to be an expert in late 16th / early 17th century orthography to be able to make the corrections you describe, but that doesn't mean that such corrections have any element of creativity to them. As a number of people in this thread have now advised you, correction of texts is not a creative process, and copyright cannot be claimed in the resulting work if all sources are in the public domain (well, it can be claimed, but the claim is unlikely to have any validity).

It may appear grossly unfair that someone can put a huge amount of effort into something, but not have any rights in what they've created as the result of that work, but that is indeed the situation. Hence my suggestion at the start of this discussion that you add a short introduction to your book. The introduction won't prevent anyone from entirely legally copying the Shakespearean texts, but it will prevent someone from simply reselling the entire book.

Let me add, by the way, that the sample pages you've shown us from your book look great, and I wish you every success with it, regardless of how you decide to distribute it.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're confusing knowledge with creativity: they aren't the same thing. You may indeed need to be an expert in late 16th / early 17th century orthography to be able to make the corrections you describe,

Well, I may not have letters at the end of my name to "prove" it, but it is a subject that I've been very, very interested in since childhood (I'm 53 now), so it's not like I've been talkin' outta my hat here. Indeed, the very first ebook that I published was a work of my own, split into two parts -- the first part in modern English, the second part with the same text written in late-Middle English. For this Shakespeare book, I have three versions of my "Publisher's Prologue" -- the main one, at the front of the book, is written in the style of Elizabethan English (to go with the rest of the book), and then in an appendix I have the same text in modern English (for people who have trouble with the Elizabethan version) and then, just for fun, also a rather wackier-to-read late-Middle English version.

but that doesn't mean that such corrections have any element of creativity to them.

Depends on how narrow your definition of "creativity" is -- if all you're talking about is something that's blatantly "eye-popping" and obvious (like, say, if I were to do up all the texts in hand-painted calligraphy and the make a book of scanned images or something), then of course you're going to dismiss anything that's less-obvious and harder-to-find.

But in my book (no pun intended), this has been a genuinely scholarly endeavour of mine, above and beyond just merely taking some public domain text, making no revisions to it whatsoever, and simply "making it look nice."

Let me add, by the way, that the sample pages you've shown us from your book look great, and I wish you every success with it, regardless of how you decide to distribute it.

Thank you, Harry, I really do like how this book has turned out -- it might very well be the best thing I've done so far, actually. It really makes me sad, though, that the attitude here seems to be that if I post my book here in the MR forums, if only to share (especially) with those people here who helped so much with the various books I've made over the years, that simply because I started with public domain texts (i.e. high-resolution scans of the original 16th/17th century pages -- not previously-digitized versions of them) that no matter what revisions I've made, sharing it here makes it a veritable free-for-all to grab and use for their own.

Because my copyright on my well-informed, knowledgeable revisions isn't worth a damn around here (even though, by law -- never mind common sense and fairness -- it actually is). :/

PS. To pdurrant...

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No number of corrections to the electronic text to make it reflect the original more closely will give the resulting text a new copyright.

Clearly you misunderstand what I've been doing here. I've been making corrections to the original, non-electronic 16th/17th century texts (which are full of errors). This has been, indeed, a "new" and "original" effort on my part, one that most publishers haven't done, they just transcribe those errors verbatim instead.

[HarryT]

Might I make a practical suggestion, Psymon? I've been running this ebook library, as well as creating ebooks, for many years, and although (as you very correctly note) I'm no lawyer, I do have a good practical knowledge of how copyright law works in both the UK and the US. However, clearly I'm not going to persuade you that what I'm telling you is correct. Go and talk to the people at Project Gutenberg. Nobody knows more about the law pertaining to the public domain in the US than they do, and if you choose not to believe me (which I have absolutely no problem with, BTW), perhaps you'll believe what they tell you? Come back here when you've done that and let us know what their view of the matter is.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Psymon

Clearly you misunderstand what I've been doing here. I've been making corrections to the original, non-electronic 16th/17th century texts (which are full of errors). This has been, indeed, a "new" and "original" effort on my part, one that most publishers haven't done, they just transcribe those errors verbatim instead.

No number of corrections to a manuscript to produce an electronic text confer a valid copyright either.

Believe me, everyone commenting in this thread understands what you claim to have done, and has some appreciation the time, effort and knowledge that would be required to perform that task.

But no amount of 'sweat of the brow' generates a valid copyright. Only creativity.

You do, of course, have copyright in your introduction, it being your own creative work.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Psymon

that no matter what revisions I've made, sharing it here makes it a veritable free-for-all to grab and use for their own.

Because my copyright on my well-informed, knowledgeable revisions isn't worth a damn around here (even though, by law -- never mind common sense and fairness -- it actually is). :/

Let me just add that whatever attitude we have here, has no say in what is legal or not to do with your book, and that is the same whether you post it here or anywhere else, for free or for a few hundred bucks.

Of course, if you post it here it means you allow MR users to download it. You may claim or reserve any other right. But there are two points to keep in mind:

- Your claims may be void before the law if they refer to something that's effectively public domain. Some of us believe this will be the case for the text of the book, you believe otherwise. It doesn't matter, that doesn't affect what happens when you upload it to MR or elsewhere.

- Regardless of the validity of your claims, it is always possible that someone will take your book, copyrighted or not, and distribute it or sell it. MR plays no part there. Whether or not you are right, if this happens you'd have to fight for your claimed rights, and you may win or lose.

The only situation where MR may have something to say is if you upload it (here or elsewhere) and someone else wants to upload some other book derived from yours. Then we'd have to decide whether this second book is infringing some copyright or not... But let's talk about that when and if it happens.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Might I make a practical suggestion, Psymon? I've been running this ebook library, as well as creating ebooks, for many years, and although (as you very correctly note) I'm no lawyer, I do have a good practical knowledge of how copyright law works in both the UK and the US. However, clearly I'm not going to persuade you that what I'm telling you is correct. Go and talk to the people at Project Gutenberg. Nobody knows more about the law pertaining to the public domain in the US than they do, and if you choose not to believe me (which I have absolutely no problem with, BTW), perhaps you'll believe what they tell you? Come back here when you've done that and let us know what their view of the matter is.

That sounds like a good idea -- either Project Gutenberg or an actual copyright lawyer, if I can find one for free (or, even better, an online forum for such legal questions, which I could then share a link to here). Thanks for the suggestion -- I'll get back to you (you all) on that, if/when I can get some sort of response (regardless of the outcome).

[Psymon]

Okay! Only just a few moments ago I got accepted into an online discussion forum specifically about digital copyright issues, and have yet to post my question(s) there, but once I do (and have received some responses) I'll share those.

In the meantime, I just did some related searches regarding whether or not one can copyright the design elements of an ebook, and I found some stuff that might -- if nothing else -- provide some food for thought. These first couple of links are referring to the HTML/CSS codes for websites, but surely the same applies for ebooks as well.

From...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...t-infringement

All code, like all content, unless explicitly released under a more permissive license, is copyrighted. Copying snippets of neat features on other sites, which is, of course, done a lot, will probably fall under "Fair Use" (look it up) in the US, or similar regulations elsewhere. However, copying a complete style sheet or HTML template, without prior permission from the author, is illegal.

From...

http://webdesign.about.com/od/copyri..._copyright.htm

A Good Rule of Thumb - HTML and CSS Are Protected by Copyright

If you see a design that you like, save it to your hard drive, and then replace all the content with your own, you are violating copyright. This is true even if you change the IDs and class names to make it look like your own work. If you didn't spend the time to create the HTML and CSS yourself, then you may be violating copyright.

Also worth looking at is this page, which goes into detail with suggestions for what to put right in your source code in order to declare your copyright on that code (and, in effect, the design of your book)...

https://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creat...otecthtml.html

And here, on the question of whether or not "derivative" works of source material that's in the public domain can be copyrighted, this site deals specifically with ebook publishing...

http://blog.kunvay.com/copyright-101...-self-publish/

A derivative work can be a translation, a musical arrangement, a fictionalization of some event, or a condensation of a work. If the original work has entered the public domain then the derivative author may freely claim copyrights in the work he had produced based on that work.

As far as what I've been working on re my own ebook (with regard to correcting/revising those 16th/17th century public domain texts), I can't imagine that anyone would argue that that's not a "derivative" work -- although at this point it wouldn't surprise me if someone here did anyway.

Anyway, I just thought the above might be of interest, if only in the interim here -- as I said above, if/when I get some replies from that digital copyright forum, I'll share whatever else I've learned from there over here.

[HarryT]

Let's be clear about definitions here.

Your book as a whole cannot be reproduced without your permission, because you've written an introduction for it, and that's unquestionably protected by copyright, but there's nothing to prevent anyone from copying the text of the Shakespearean texts from your book and re-using those, because the Shakespeare remains Shakespeare - you have not made any creative changes to it.

A derivative work is something like "West Side Story" or <shudder> "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", where a public domain work has been transformed into a completely new work. You have not transformed Shakespeare's work into something different: it is Shakespeare's original work, with the only changes being corrections to the text (which, as we've already explored, do not gain you a new copyright).

So, can you put a copyright notice in your book? Yes, certainly. Will that prevent anyone from re-using one (or all) of the Shakespearean texts in your book? No, it won't, although it will prevent anyone from simply copying the book as a whole.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Psymon

As far as what I've been working on re my own ebook (with regard to correcting/revising those 16th/17th century public domain texts), I can't imagine that anyone would argue that that's not a "derivative" work

As I said, a derivative work is something you would put your name as an author of it (and be called a plagiarist if you didn't acknowledge the original). If you modify it but still say it's Shakespeare's work, not yours, then it's not a derivative work, it's Shakespeare's work, modified by you.

So, do you feel your changes are enough to say you are the author of the poems, and not Shakespeare? The answer to that is, in my opinion, the answer to whether or not it is a derivative work.

[Psymon]

Harry and Jellby, yes, I can see your points about the definition of the word "derivative" -- although I do still see a difference between claiming "copyright" on an emended piece of public domain text and then also claiming "authorship." Being an author and being an editor aren't the same thing, of course.

But at any rate, I guess I'll wait to see what answers I might get (hopefully) on that copyright law forum, see what they think about this question. I thought that the other links I provided put an interesting slant on things, though, that one's HTML/CSS code is copyrightable, and that even if someone wanted to "steal" my text (and were technically within their rights to do so), they would be violating my copyright if they took my code.

In that regard, every book posted here posted in the MR forums is copyrightable by the ebook creators -- not for whatever public domain texts that they contain, but rather for the coding of the files that make them up.

That is, assuming that what those various websites is indeed true (and for what it's worth, I didn't find any sites that said no, your code is not copyrightable).