Odd (and misleading) copyright statement

Michael Brewer writes, about a copy of "Wizard of Oz" published just a few years ago [the original, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was published in 1900], that it bears a somewhat confusing copyright notice, which:

>> ...said something like "new material copyright 1999" and then went
>> on to say, in the usual language, that no part of this book may be
>> copied...without the consent of...etc." There was no indication
>> what part of the text was "new", or whether or not it had been
>> abridged, or changed in any way. My question is, isn't this
>> terribly misleading? The implication is that nothing in the book can
>> be used without the consent of the copyright holder (to whatever new
>> material there might be, but not to the majority of the text, or even
>> perhaps the entire text - the new material could be just
>> illustrations, or notes)....Is it, then, up to the user to determine
>> what is new (if anything) and what is not...?

That sent me to my bookshelf and my copy of "The Annotated Wizard of Oz / The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum / Pictures by W.W. Denslow / With an Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography by Michael Patrick Hearn" (Clarkson N. Potter, 1973). Denslow was the original illustrator (he'd also worked with Baum on earlier books).

The copyright notice in THIS book raises even larger questions. It reads, "Copyright 1973 by Michael Patrick Hearn. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publisher."

This suggests that Hearn was claiming all right not only to his intro, annotations, etc. but also to Baum's text and Denslow's illustrations. That doesn't seem right.

Comments?

--DS Received on Tue Aug 29 2006 - 19:45:31 GMT