Book People Archive

Re: copyright of photoreproduced text

Last, week, I asked:
>>>>  Does anybody know the extent to which a photoreproduction
>>>> of an uncopyrighted text can be copyrighted?

To summarize, the original question was whether the individual
photoreproductions of a public-domain text are copyrightable if 
they are incorporated into a larger work that also contained original 
material.

  The answer under US (and apparently British) copyright law is no.  
While the new work as a whole may be copyrighted, only the original 
parts are protected; not the exact copies of public-domain images, no 
matter how much technical effort (or detective work) went into making 
them:

 "The mere fact that a work is copyrighted does not mean that every
  element of the work may be protected.  Originality remains the sine qua
  non of copyright; accordingly, copyright protection may extend only to
  those components of a work that are original to the author."  (Feist)

  In my case, Thai rather than US copyright law would apply.  However,
the basic decisions are clearly and persuasively written:

Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Co .,  499 U.S. 390 (1991).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=499
&invol=340
             
Bridgeman Art Library, LTD. v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp, 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y 1999)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm

  Thanks to all,
  Doug Cooper
_________________________________________________
Center for Research in Computational Linguistics, Bangkok
               1425 VP Tower, 21/45 Soi Chawakun
      Rangnam Road, Rajthevi, Bangkok, Thailand 10400
        doug@[redacted] (662) 246-8946  fax (662) 246-8789