Re: copyright in the digitized object?

On Wed, Mar 01, 2000, Stephen Fishman <sfish55[_at_]yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Could you explain in a little more detail the type of
> work you do in scanning public domain documents that
> you regard as creativ"? When you scan them do you
> change the format or make other types of changes?

I am happy to explain our procedure.

We see our database as more analogous to a "card catalog" than to a series of "book shelves." Thus we try to capture the words that will lead our users to determine whether they want to obtain the original document or not. We try to preserve structure (headings, paragraph breaks, etc.) but make no attempt to preserve layout in the form of typefaces, columns, etc. We choose to omit many and often all non-textual items, including long sections of computer code. We make experience-based decisions on how much "cleaning" to do to make our version match the original document in spelling, etc. We often determine that the "best is the enemy of the good" and use automated results that in some cases are far short of "correctly" tracking the original document.

We see all of these as selection, arrangement, display choices for the database records we produce. We think they do rise to the level of creativity required for copyright protection of our database records. But we make no claim to copyright in the original document or to any sections within it, whether in digital form or not.

By the way, we make our results available on the web at http://www.spi.org/ and we do not charge to search our database. We do have a click-through agreement concerning liability and respect for the copyrights involved, including those in those copyrighted original documents that we are using with permission.

Roland J. Cole, Executive Director
Software Patent Institute
9225 Indian Creek Parkway, Suite 1100
OVERLAND PARK KS 66210-2009
913-451-3355; fax 913-415-3361
cole@spi.org; http://www.spi.org/ Received on Fri Mar 03 2000 - 20:01:50 GMT