[sword-devel] Neural Networks and Optical Character Recognition

[DM Smith]

On Apr 26, 2008, at 5:14 PM, Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Apr 2008, Greg Hellings wrote:
>> Your understanding is, I believe, slightly flawed.  There is a
>> separate part of the copyright laws which allows for someone who made
>> a major effort to transform a document (I know translation is  
>> covered,
>> and I would imagine that paper->digital conversion is also covered)
>> may copyright that transformation.
>
> I'm not sure if you're right about this. I haven't read the US  
> copyright
> law but the Finnish law, and it gives a real copyright (author's  
> right)
> for a translation. Copyright/autor's right is for "creative work", not
> for mechanical work. Finland follows the Berne conventions and other
> international conventions. There is nothing about transformation, the
> closest one is the database right. It is surprisingly difficult to  
> find
> information about this by googling, all I could find was "Workshop on
> Electronic Text--Session VI" which states that "An enchanced  
> electronic
> copy of a print copy ... is not copyrightable."
>
> This is quite important topic because there might be a fair amount of
> material for us to use if electronic resources can not be under
> copyright or some other right by just being transformed.

My 2 cents (personal opinion) as one who is not a lawyer:
For a work that is not under copyright, the text is public domain. But  
anyone can fairly claim that their markup of the text is copyrighted.  
For example, in the KJV work that we did, we marked it up. We can  
legitimately claim the copyright for the osis elements, but not for  
the actual KJV content. The Strong's numbering of the NT was the  
result of volunteer effort on behalf of CrossWire. And legitimately,  
CrossWire can claim copyright for that too.

If one were to "enhance" a work that is no longer copyrighted, one  
could legitimately claim a copyright for the changes. And without  
identifying the changes one could claim a copyright for the work as a  
whole. I have seen copyright claims on the KJV (just visit a book  
store and look for copyright info on the publications) and have heard  
that publishers deliberately introduce changes that they are able to  
identify as their own. I don't know if it is true or just hearsay.