Re: Academics and coursepacks

On Tuesday, July 7th, 1998 (during the hours of daylight =Gregorian Lunar Almanac 1998.7th Moon.13th day) Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote:
>
> If the professor is teaching a Shakespeare class, and he has copies
> of the original folios, from which he makes a new text containing
> his own emendations, there is no problems. If, however, he uses the
> new Oxford Shakespeare ... and simply photocopies ... a play or two
> for a class of 200, we have a serious problem....For the prof to
> refuse to ask permission is outright arrogant thievery.

I'm not aware of any textual-criticism cases occurring under the 1976 law. But the law *ought* to be as follows (of course, this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, this doesn't establish a lawyer-client relationship, etc): Anything in the Oxford Shakespeare that is represented as Shakespeare's own work should be considered to be in the public domain, even if no prior quarto, folio, or edition contains that precise wording. The expert who claims to have restored what Shakespeare wrote should not be allowed to do a back-flip and claim that the emendation is an original work of authorship. For original notes and commentary, the textual scholar gets a copyright. For establishing a fact (what someone else wrote) the scholar should be required to be content with scholarly laurels.

So in this view, our hypothetical professor should be able to copy the text of the play itself (as opposed to notes and commentary) as many times as he likes. The question of "fair use" doesn't even arise, since "fair use" only applies to *copyrighted* work, and the play is in the public domain.

> [M]en and women...deserve to be compensated for the use of their property.

What is the "property" here--the work, or the copyright? The law, as I read, has always insisted (at least when it has been careful to be precise) that the copyright is the property, not the work. Put another way, not every "use" of a work involves a "use" of "property" for which someone "deserves to be compensated." Fair uses are among those for which the rightsholder does NOT deserve to be compensated. The assertion that certain proposed classroom uses are unfair doesn't make them so. The word "property" doesn't provide an answer; it merely states the question.

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Wed Jul 08 1998 - 18:38:34 GMT