[sword-devel] DSS (Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls based upon DJD translations)

[Greg Hellings]

Andrew,

You have fundamentally misunderstood what type of exemption is
applied. Works produced by academic institutions are still eligible
for Copyright and do not fall into the Public Domain by default.
However, an academic may utilize a Copyrighted work in certain Fair
Use scenarios which are outlawed in the laws you cited. Yes, if you
are producing acadmic writings or other similar works, you are free to
quote from another's translation of the DSS or any other piece of work
as long as you adhere to the requirements of the Copyright laws.

Those laws are not stating that, by producing a work that is academic,
you have no Copyright claim to it. You misunderstand the very nature
of the Fair Use clause.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content#Academia summarizes the very
fact that not all academically produced works are free. They're not,
and you are simply wrong in claiming that they are. The fact that such
works are under Copyright is why researchers are required to grant
their institutions the perpetual right to use works produced while at
that institution - this applies to translations just as much as any
other work.

If you want citations, here is the decision Basic Books, Inc. v.
Kinko's Graphics Corporation where the court ruled that Kinko's was
not allowed to reproduce academic works because it violated the
publisher's copyrights:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/primary_materials/cases/c758FSupp1522.html.

Here is Princeton University Press v. Michigan Doc. where it was
likewise found by the courts that academic texts cannot be copied and
distributed without permission from the Copyright holders as that is a
violation of their rights:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/99_F3d_1381.htm.

And here is an analysis of a Copyright case this summer where
publishers brought against Georgia State University suit regarding
their use of academic works in the classroom. If you read down about a
third of the way you will find that academic Fair Use allowed the
University to reproduce, under a limited-user-access system excerpts
which did not exceed 10% of the original work that was published for
works of 9 or fewer chapters and not more than a single entire chapter
for works of 10 or more chapters. Again - the Copyright is upheld, and
academic uses in a classroom by a University library are tightly
restricted - not allowed free-form like you are saying can be done
with any text produced in the academic world:
http://laboratorium.net/archive/2012/05/13/inside_the_georgia_state_opinion.
This is the most relevant of the three cases because it sets specific
limitations that a not-for-profit University library is required to
follow.

So you have provided the law, and I have provided the Court rulings
which show that your interpretation claiming that academic works are
not under Copyright is false. Those works ARE subject to Copyright
unless their authors or publishers have explicitly released them from
Copyright. And to reproduce them for anything other than your personal
use or use in a classroom by your students or the other very narrow
cases in the Fair Use clause is a violation of that Copyright.

--Greg

On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 10:32 PM, Andrew Thule <thulester at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris, thank you for taking time to lay out your position.  (Comments
> inline)
>
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Chris Little <chrislit at crosswire.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> The problem here is that you are employing CrossWire's mailing list to
>> publicize the dissemination of a copyright-violating work. You are breaking
>> the law and you are implicating CrossWire in your crime.
>>
>> If you refuse to accept what you have repeatedly been told here, I would
>> ask that you at least cease from using CrossWire to publicize your illegal
>> activities. If you refuse, I will pursue your removal.
>>
>
> Chris, simply asserting that copyright has been violated does not make it
> so.  I've presented a defence which you and others have ignored. I did this
> so folks who read this list can judge for themselves and I've posted links
> to the law itself and quoted the relevant sections.
>
> I understand you disagree, but don't simply accuse me of something without
> dealing with the defence.  HOW HAVE I BROKEN THE LAW?
>
> DSS Translations produced as the result of research/academics are either
> exempt from copyright or not.
>
> I've posted links to both US and Canadian the law which exempts academic
> work as 'fair use' (once scholarly work is published consent is
> automatically implied).
>
> For me to have broken the law it needs to be shown how the academic
> provision stated clearly in the law doesn't apply to translations published
> in scholarly journals. Academic work is except from copyright once it is
> published!
>
> But let's suppose that weren't true.  Even Copyright work can be reproduced
> as a derivative work so long as the the original work is sufficiently
> transformed and serves some purpose.  I've not only cited how book authors
> using the DSS have used translations not their own for commercial purposes,
> but disclaimed I have any such designs and I openly acknowledge the original
> translators.
>
> Even if we assumed falsely that published academic work could be protected
> copyright, for my actions to have illegal the module would have to be NOT a
> derivative work!
>
>>
>>
>> The crux is that you are the one who does not understand copyright law. No
>> one other than you has said anything incorrect or false with regards to
>> copyright and fair use. (Greg did misidentify copyright violation (a legal
>> matter) as plagiarism (an academic honesty matter) but aside from incorrect
>> terminology nothing he said was wrong.)
>
>
> I've posted both Canadian and American copyright law in previous posts.
> Both Canadian and American copyright law provide for derivative work and
> copyright exemptions because the source is published scholarship.  Use of
> 'translations' produced as a result of academic/scholastic research is NOT
> the same as simply PLAGIARISING someone else's (commercial) bible IF
> academic/scholastic research IS exempt from copyright - which it is.
>
>>
>> A derivative work may not legally be produced without valid license to do
>> so. The author of a work upon which a derivative work is based still owns
>> copyright on the derivative work.
>
>
> Correct.  What constitutes 'valid license' according to US law?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
>
> Two things:
> 1. Transformativeness:  Notice "The use must be productive and must employ
> the quoted matter in a different manner or for a different purpose from the
> original. ...[If] the secondary use adds value to the original--if the
> quoted matter is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new
> information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings--this is the
> very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the
> enrichment of society."
>
> 2. Copyright protection: By crediting the original translators, their
> original copyright is being honoured but the changes must serve some purpose
> (preferably not a commercial one).
>
> Both hold true here.
>
> I agree with your point, but you seem be denying one or both of the above
> principles are true in this case.
>
>>
>>
>> There are absolutely no special rules pertaining to academic work. If a
>> work is copyrighted, it is copyrighted. It is equally protected if it is
>> produced in an academic setting or for an academic audience or if it is a
>> new Harry Potter novel. The law sees no difference.
>
>
> Except that materials PUBLISHED in academic, scientific, or research
> publications implicitly contain permission to re-use.  'Discoveries in the
> Judean Desert' is an academic publication used to convey the results of DSS
> research.  Therefore once a text is published, implicit consent is
> established by law to allow further use of the text, and thus permission
> does not need to be obtained to use the text further, nor is there need to
> engage copyright.  The purpose of the law it to protect the creation of
> culture, not to establish the ownership of facts.  Translating ancient text
> as an act of scholarship is NOT the creation of culture!
>
> The US Law that imposes these natural limitations on copyright (called fair
> use) also outline the four criteria here:
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
>
> 1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
> commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
>
> Is the production of this module going to detract from the competitive
> advantage of the translators to do research or the publishers of DJD to sell
> DJD volumes?
> NO!
>
> (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
>
> IS THE RESULT OF SCHOLARSHIP!
>
> (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
> copyrighted work as a whole; and
>
> Since only the a tiny portion of the DJD translations have been used (namely
> only the biblical ones) the amount or portion that have been used in minor.
>
> (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
> copyrighted work.
> IS Negligible.
>
> Your example of using a Harry Potter novel which is a commercial endeavour
> and not published scholarship shows you don't understand the legal
> principles of fair use!  Harry Potter is culture creation, the invention of
> some ones creativity for commercial gain.  The translation of ancient texts
> and publication in academics sources is NOT.
>
> For my position to be wrong there would need to be the expectation that DJD
> was not produced for the purposes of research.
>
>>
>> Furthermore, you are in no way entitled to pretend that you are producing
>> work for educational purposes. You are not producing work for an academic
>> institution. You are not producing work for classroom instruction. No court
>> in any country anywhere would deem your actions to fall under academic fair
>> use. Those uses are themselves extremely limited. I could not, for example,
>> photocopy a textbook (or extensive portions of a textbook) to disseminate to
>> a whole class of students. Under fair use, I generally DO scan and post the
>> first week or two of readings for my students since they're still awaiting
>> the arrival of their textbooks. And under fair use, I sometimes distribute
>> copies of short texts or songs that are part of a larger work to my
>> students. But those are excerpts (they make up a small portion of my course
>> and what I copy is a small portion of the whole book/album that I copy from)
>> and that is in an academic setting (your posting is not).
>>
> I'm not.  You misunderstand.
>
> Copyright law is about protecting the source!  The sources have been
> produced as a result of scholarship, and published in a scholarly journal.
>
> The only thing I've said about my goals was that it was not commercial which
> speaks to the motivation of producing a derivative work.  I'm not selling
> this module - so clearly it's not commercial, but whether or not that's
> true, the source, the thing we're arguing about IS the result of
> scholarship.
>
>>
>>
>> If I photocopy the entirety of The Hobbit or copy a DVD of Citizen Kane or
>> bring a video camera into a theater to record the latest James Bond movie,
>> I'm committing copyright infringement. I would be breaking the law in all of
>> those cases because I do not have the RIGHT to COPY. Whether I do the
>> copying for my own personal use is irrelevant. It's illegal.
>
>
> Well .. again The Hobbit is not scholarly work, published to advanced
> knowledge.  Rather it's the cultural contribution of an author seeking
> commercial benefit.  Because the intent here is to advanced culture and not
> knowledge, the rights of the author are protected.  However, scholars are
> not denied the right to use the work of other scholars for the sake of
> advancing knowledge.  Copyright is not designed to restrict the advancement
> of knowledge.
>
> God's peace.
>
> ~A
>
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