Hi All,

I'm wondering if anyone on the list can help me figure out some issues

having to do with the copyright dates that apply to publications in

the EU. Let's say that I've found an edition of a medieval text

published in an EU member country in 1973, the author is alive, and I

want to publish it on my website. How do I figure out if this is under

copyright protection or in the public domain?

Referring to the 1993 EU copyright law

(http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31993L0098&model=guichett)

the critical points are:

Article 5

Critical and scientific publications

Member States may protect critical and scientific publications of works

which have come into the public domain. The maximum term of protection

of such rights shall be 30 years from the time when the publication was

first lawfully published.

If this is the law, then any edition published before 1975 (even if

the author is alive) is fair game.

However, Article 1, point 1 says this:

1. The rights of an author of a literary or artistic work within the meaning

of Article 2 of the Berne Convention shall run for the life of the author

and for 70 years after his death, irrespective of the date when the work is

lawfully made available to the public.

(The Berne Convention defines literary or artistic work as "every production

in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or

form of its expression" - which is pretty broad (

http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/2.html). Translations,

adaptations, and arrangements count, as do encyclopedias & anthologies.)

So how do I decide if the edition in my hand falls under Article 1 or

Article 5? Is it pretty straightforward (any edition of a public

domain text falls under Article 5), or is there some ambiguity? I fear

the question comes down to, exactly how much do you have to do to a

public domain text (Article 5) before it becomes a new original text

(Article 1)? What about critical apparatus? Editorial introductions?

Is it possible for different parts of the same book to fall under

different copyright protections (the edited text vs. the apparatus and

introductions)?

Thanks,

Dot

--

***************************************

Dot Porter, Program Coordinator

Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities

University of Kentucky

351 William T. Young Library

Lexington, KY  40506

dporter@uky.edu          859-257-9549

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