Re: Copyright in Arrangement (Was: Re: Academics and coursepacks)

Bob Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> Apropos the string about copyright claims in a "new" edition of
> Shakespeare, Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote, in part:
> >
> > In my analogy, I did not say that no-one had ever attempted to
> > reconstruct the ruins, only that they were ruins.
>
> This ignores Amy Stoller's absolutely correct point that later
> publications of Shakespeare's plays were emphatically NOT based on
> fragments, or "ruins", but on the work of Heminges and Condel,
> actors who had performed the plays themselves, knew the lines, and
> had both their memories and their scripts to work from. We are not
> talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls here. Editions of Shakespeare's
> plays are no more a "reconstruction" than editions of Homer, Sophocles,
> Dante, Chaucer, or Ben Jonson. Yes, there are some spurious passages
> and variant readings. That's also true of Joyce's Ulysses and lots of
> other works of literature. It doesn't mean that any "new" edition that
> differs in some respects is a "reconstruction" of "ruins".

Thank you, Bob. I couldn't have put it better myself (though I did give it the old college try).

Amy Stoller

ghoti
<redherring[_at_]tuna.net>
<:)))>><(Amy Stoller) Received on Sat Jul 25 1998 - 02:55:53 GMT