[okfn-discuss] Re: Bridgeman vs. Corel and scans of public-domain works (was: Update)

Fri Dec 1 12:36:30 UTC 2006

Ron Severdia wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> He just emailed me that he's doing a little research and will get  back 
> to me next week. In the meantime, I found this:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> Bridgeman_Art_Library_Ltd._v._Corel_Corporation
> 
> This is a ruling which states that a scan or photocopy of a public  
> domain work is NOT copyrightable. So the universities' website that  
> have a copyright notice is either to scare off people copying or they  
> are not informed of the law.

Bridgeman is definitely an interesting case though one should remember 
that it is a *US* one. I wrote an email to fc-uk-discuss back in May 
about Bridgeman, focusing on how it would relate to the case of reissues 
of public domain recordings in the UK:

http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/fc-uk-discuss/2006-May/000968.html

I was especially taken with the US judge's views on how the matter would 
play out under UK law (see the quotes in the linked message), in 
particular, his view that Grave's case was no longer binding precedent.

Unfortunately, since I wrote that, as a result of further further 
discussions with lawyers, I'm less convinced this view is correct. In a 
UK court copyright in a scan (or a reissue of a recording) might well be 
upheld (though this is a murky area and the decision might turn on the 
facts e.g. how much effort had gone into preparing the scan etc etc). In 
particular one would want to look carefully at the recent case of 
Sawkins vs. Hyperion:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2005/565.html

So, in summary, you are absolutely right that in the US, copyright 
notices on scans of public-domain work are probably meaningless. However 
in Europe (and e.g. Australia also) the situation may well be quite 
different!

Regards,

Rufus