Re: MIDI sequencing -- copyrightable??

On Sat, May 27, 2000, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> In situations where the original is the enemy of the true, a
> copyist (I consider an editor a species of copyist) who chooses
> the true waives all claim to originality -- and hence to copyright
> -- in those editorial features which simply establish what someone
> else originally wrote. This is my opinion of what the law will be
> whenever the Feist v. Rural Telephone, Matthew Bender v. West, and
> other decisions repudiating the "sweat of the brow" concept of
> copyright are interprete properly. Possibly not all judges can be
> counted on to understand or accept this most excellent rule, however.

I have long been puzzled by the claims to copyright of professors who publish "scholarly editions" of the classics. The above statements sound very reasonable to me. Yet it is an obvious fact that the "editorial features" in question for literature are often no more determinable by creative effort than that in music.

For example, "The Scarlet Letter" was first published in 1850. In 1962, Ohio State University Press copyrighted a scholarly edition of this classic, and its new text made only about four very minor changes. Since the original manuscript and galley proofs had been destroyed, it was not possible to demonstrate that these changes were "true" any more than any other, and in fact the changes were not original either. Nevertheless, the copyright has not been contested, and most modern reprints of this work license publishing rights from OSUP. There are many more examples, "The Great Gatsby," most of Thoreau's writings, "The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford, etc. When I publish such works on my web site I have to be careful not to use such a copyrighted edition. Yet it pains me to be unable to present the "best" text. And in any case I think the underlying bibliographic theory (Sir William Greg's) is just silly -- they throw out all the punctuation and editorial style decisions as "accidentals" and start over. This keeps money flowing to professors and keeps copyright term perpetual.  

-- 
"Eric"  Eric Eldred  Eldritch Press
mailto:Eldred[_at_]EldritchPress.org
http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf