Re: Working Group Report -- first electronic rights?

I wonder about the same thing, but not necessarily in the electronic context. Legally, there is no problem with museums forbidding photography of public domain artworks on display. But when the public domain work is officially photographed or rendered by the museum and that work put onto a postcard or poster, sold without any express contractual limitations, it's my understanding that the copyright exists as to the newly-rendered work on the poster. I have difficulty in seeing how works like this ever enter the public domain as a practical matter, given that the public domain work is a unique object and made available only through derivative works themselves copyrighted. So long as there is no access to the original, public domain work, one can never make a copy from the public domain work, only from the proprietary copy. This strikes me as a perversion of the public domain concept. What am I missing here?

> David Dailey (ddailey[_at_]williams.edu):
>
> Made me wonder again about something that has come up on this group a
> couple times, but which I'm not sure ever got answered:
>
> If something (say a text or a picture) enters the public domain, then
> can someone scarf it up digitally and claim first electronic rights --
> thereby reclaiming copyright for a new medium?
>
> I would certainly hope not, since it would be rather like someone
> saying "I'm the first one to print the Constitution on acid-free
> paper" so nobody else can for 50 or 70 or 90 or a zillion years to
> come. That is "public domain" really oughta mean public domain, though
> I recall someone claiming the exclusive electronic rights to Clinton's
> inaugural address being discussed here some time back.
>
> Rumor has circulated for some time that a prominent software company is
> grabbing up old IP with precisely the above intention... I could
> imagine some sort of sweat-of-the-brow argument trying to convince
> folks that scanning is hard work.

At the museum the other day, I saw the famous Barnes collection on CD-ROM. Was that published by Microsoft?

Lee Tien
Attorney
tien[_at_]well.sf.ca.us
(510) 525-0817 voice
(510) 525-3015 fax Received on Thu Sep 28 1995 - 14:23:53 GMT