>Assuming this is in the US, the copyrights have
>expired. But ownership of the physical copy carries
>ordinary personal property rights, including the
>right to exclude others from access for copying.
Yes. The example I was taught was - A person finds a letter containing an original Grimm's fairy tale. No other copy exists. It's in german. The letter's content is in the public domain, but a translation would be the subject of copyright.
So, you hire a translator, make them sign all sorts of confidentiality agreements, and then publish the translation. The original german version is locked away and never published. Poof. You've turned a chattel into an intellectual property interest.
Rob Received on Fri Apr 08 2005 - 02:00:00 GMT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:54 GMT