<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Apr 27, 2008, at 1:59 AM, Chris Little wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">DM Smith wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">My 2 cents (personal opinion) as one who is not a lawyer:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">For a work that is not under copyright, the text is public domain. But <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">anyone can fairly claim that their markup of the text is copyrighted. <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">For example, in the KJV work that we did, we marked it up. We can <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">legitimately claim the copyright for the osis elements, but not for <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the actual KJV content. The Strong's numbering of the NT was the <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">result of volunteer effort on behalf of CrossWire. And legitimately, <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">CrossWire can claim copyright for that too.<br></blockquote><br>As Jerry mentions, US copyright is only concerned with creative <br>expression. The relevant publication that explains what can be covered <br>in derivative works is Copyright Circular 14: <br><a href="http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html">http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html</a>.</blockquote><div><br></div>This is an easy and good read. Thanks.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><br><br>So whether markup is covered by copyright depends on whether it is <br>creative. If you're converting a printed text to HTML and you use tags <br>like <p>, <b>, <i>, etc. to approximate the printed presentation, those <br>tags are in no way creative or copyrightable.</blockquote><div><br></div>In reading the above publication, there seems to be wide latitude in what defines creative, what defines substantial and also original.</div><div><br></div><div>I agree with you that style markup that preserves an approximation of the printed presentation is not creative.</div><div><br></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"> With our KJV text, we had <br>two components: automatic tagging by scripts and human <br>tagging/correction. The automatic tagging is definitely not creative. <br>And I think it was our intent that the human tagging accurately reflect <br>the history of the text rather than be some sort of creative expression. <br>The last point is certainly debatable, but I am of the opinion that <br>nothing about our KJV is copyrightable (except under Crown Copyright in <br>the UK).</blockquote><div><br></div>I think that our KJV conf states it well:</div><div><table class="table">
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<td class="cell" valign="top">
Any copyright that might be obtained for this effort is held by
CrossWire Bible Society (c) 2003 and CrossWire Bible Society hereby
grants a general public license to use this text for any purpose.
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</tbody></table></div><div><br></div><div>That is, even if we have grounds, we are placing the entire work under a very liberal use license.</div><div><br></div><div>Having worked on it cleaning the KJV up (which in and of itself is not creative, but is a boatload of work) I think that the NT tagging was creative. An effective goal of the effort was to have every word in the NT map to the words in the TR, noting its position and its Strong's number. And also to note all the words by position in the TR that were not translated into the KJV.</div><div><br></div><div>Part of my effort that was creative was content markup. For example, the identification and markup of inscriptions and the determination of what headings are canonical and those which are not.</div><div><br></div><div>All of my effort, creative or not, original or not, substantial or not, on the KJV is freely given to CrossWire to make it freely available for any purpose.</div><div><br></div><div>
<blockquote type="cite"><br><br>The same goes for ALL of those Bibles from Importantia where they claim <br>copyright on the Strong's numbers (but not the text). You can't <br>copyright Strong's numbers tagging if you're being faithful--only if <br>you're making it up.<br><br><blockquote type="cite">If one were to "enhance" a work that is no longer copyrighted, one <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">could legitimately claim a copyright for the changes. And without <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">identifying the changes one could claim a copyright for the work as a <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">whole. I have seen copyright claims on the KJV (just visit a book <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">store and look for copyright info on the publications) and have heard <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">that publishers deliberately introduce changes that they are able to <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">identify as their own. I don't know if it is true or just hearsay.<br></blockquote><br>Watermarking can help you know where a text came from. You could use it <br>to demonstrate a violation of license terms, but it doesn't make a <br>public domain work into a copyrightable derivative work. The <br>watermarking itself isn't even copyrightable because (again) it's not <br>creative.</blockquote><br></div><div>OK, I missed the "creative" part. Change "enhance" to "enhance, in line with the legal definition of copyrightable derivative work". The point is that the publisher is not obligated to identify the derivative changes.</div><div><br></div><div>And I think your point is that publishers may be claiming copyright for something that is not creative.</div><div><br></div><div>In Him,</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>DM<br></div><br></body></html>