At 09:21 AM 9/1/2007, you wrote: >If someone takes an image >of a graphic in an original document that's out of copyright >they don't own the copyright of the graphic in the original document >but they do own the copyright on their image. Bill, The above seems to be a common misconception. There can be no copyright in an image that ""amounts to nothing more than slavish copying." "Absent a genuine difference between the underlying work of art and the copy of it for which protection is sought, the public interest in promoting progress in the arts -- indeed, the constitutional demand [citation omitted] -- could hardly be served. To extend copyrightability to minuscule variations would simply put a weapon for harassment in the hands of mischievous copiers intent on appropriating and monopolizing public domain work. Even in Mazer v. Stein, x x x the Court expressly held that the objects to be copyrightable, 'must be original, that is, the author's tangible expression of his ideas." 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 IOW, no matter how much technical knowledge and/or skill is involved in making a copy of a public domain document, a copy is a copy and is also public domain. Pat

Pat Thank you for that assessment, and especially for the link to Bridgeman Vs Corel The reasoning seems to make sense, but I've also seen contrarian argumentation on that. As a case in point, organizations like Topozone considers the images they provide to be within their copyright. You can't use them without paying for that right. Yet the images are based on USGS public property maps. True, they are probably using digitized data to generate their maps rather than scanning them, but the raw data is public property, and so their use would seem to be public property. Yet you can not use the images for anything other than personal use. Is this not the case? Bill On Sep 1, 2007, at 9:49 AM, Pat Asher wrote: > At 09:21 AM 9/1/2007, you wrote: >> If someone takes an image >> of a graphic in an original document that's out of copyright >> they don't own the copyright of the graphic in the original document >> but they do own the copyright on their image. > > Bill, > > The above seems to be a common misconception. There can be no > copyright in an image that ""amounts to nothing more than slavish > copying." > > "Absent a genuine difference between the underlying work of art and > the copy of it for which protection is sought, the public interest in > promoting progress in the arts -- indeed, the constitutional demand > [citation omitted] -- could hardly be served. To extend > copyrightability to minuscule variations would simply put a weapon > for harassment in the hands of mischievous copiers intent on > appropriating and monopolizing public domain work. Even in Mazer v. > Stein, x x x the Court expressly held that the objects to be > copyrightable, 'must be original, that is, the author's tangible > expression of his ideas." > > 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 > > > IOW, no matter how much technical knowledge and/or skill is involved > in making a copy of a public domain document, a copy is a copy and is > also public domain. > > Pat > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COPYRIGHT- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message