Re: Academics and coursepacks

On Fri, July 10, 1998, Jeremy G. Byrne <jeremy[_at_]iz.org> wrote:
>
> On 9/07/98, Randy Nieuwsma <nieuwr[_at_]legacy.calvin.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Put yourself in (editor) Wells' position: You have spent many hours
> > collecting, comparing, evaluating (with experience based-upon a
> > lifetime of study), editing; someone else designed your product and
> > typeset it. Now, they sell one copy; you get the royalty for one
> > copy; and the purchaser gets the intellectual benefit of 200 copies.
> >
> > Is this fair to you?
>
> Perfectly.
>
> It would seem to me that our basic disagreement is over whether the
> editorial work of Wells and others merits recognition as creativity,
> and justifies their gaining rights over public domain material.
> Randy seems to believe that it does and should. I do not.
>
> I am a professional editor; I have worked as an editor in various
> amateur and professional capacities for more than a decade. The job
> of an editor is not to create but to facilitate the creativity of
> others.
>
> We apply consistent, often quite mechanistic standards to generalise
> meaning and to moderate authors' wilder instincts, and we apply our
> experience to suggest ways in which authors might restructure their
> writing to help them better reach their audiences. The work of an
> editor does not merit copyright protection.

But this is more than mere "editing": it is major reconstruction. See my other note.

Michael Scarpitti
<mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> Received on Mon Jul 13 1998 - 01:48:07 GMT