At 07:44 PM 3/10/2006, Rene' wrote: >I was under the impression that it is copyright infringement to take someone >s transcription verbatim and publish it?? I believe that Sara is going to >put the material on a website - granted she is not selling it, but is it >still personal use when used on a website? > >Now who is to say where exactly she got the information from if it is in the >public domain, realistically only she knows. A straightforward transcription (without commentary, annotation, or interpretation as from one language to another) is a copy, and can not be copyrighted by the transcriber. If the original is protected by copyright, then the right to make copies resides with the copyright holder. If the original is public domain, then it belongs to the community at large, and anyone can copy. No copyright attaches to a "slavish" copy, only to original contributions of the author. Thus, if you transcribe a document as accurately as possible, your "copy" is no more original than a xerox copy of the original. On the other hand, if you add comments, analysis, etc., those are original to you and are copyrighted. The portions you copied are not. Pat