[OpenGLAM] Fwd: Open Licensing at the National Library of Scotland

Mon Nov 10 11:54:54 UTC 2014

Hi Laurel,

Apologies for the delay.

The policy described how the Library will approach licensing the digital
photographs that we make of works. It would be copyfraud for us to claim
intellectual property in original items where the copyright has lapsed and
the work’s IP passed into the public domain. We do not claim intellectual
property ownership in original items that are in the public domain. What we
do, as is common in the UK, is claim a new copyright in digitisations. This
is copyright in the photograph, as a new intellectual work involving a
certain level of skill and effort, and is no claim on the IP in the
original. As you allude, it is public domain items that we are digitising.
Our new policy moves us towards a more open licensing approach to our new
photographic works. The practice of claiming copyright in digitisations is
an interesting and complex one, which is often debated. For example, it is
not possible to claim a new copyright ownership in digitisations in United
States law. This was laid down in the Bridgeman Art library v. Corel Corp.
case in 1999. However, in the UK this is a common and legally established
approach.

Cheers,

Fred

 Begin forwarded message:

 *From: *"Laurel L. Russwurm" <laurel.l at russwurm.org>

*Subject: Re: [OpenGLAM] Open Licensing at the National Library of Scotland*

*Date: *3 November 2014 13:17:06 GMT

*To: *open-glam at lists.okfn.org

Dear Ewan:

This sounds great, but I am just a little curious.  Does:

 "1,000 digital images have been released into the Public Domain"

mean that 1,000 images entitled to copyright protection under Scots law
have been released into the Public Domain?

Or does this mean The National Library of Scotland is just now withdrawing
its own claims of Intellectual Property ownership of Public Domain works
among its holdings?  If the latter, it is not the same thing as Nina
Paley's dedication of her own original work, "Sita Sings the Blues,"
[http://sitasingstheblues.com/] (and indeed all of her own original work)
into the Public Domain.

I don't think you can release works into the Public Domain that are already
in the Public Domain.

And while I understand it is a good idea to praise GLAMS for doing "the
right thing,"  if the works are already in the Public Domain, using this
wording implies that NOT recognizing the legitimacy of the Public Domain is
a reasonable alternative.   It is not.

Under law, owning a work does not confer copyright ownership.  If someone
else owns the copyright, claiming copyright, even on a physical work that
you own without also owning the copyright is legally defined as copyright
infringement.    Although modern copyright law does not appear to make even
the slightest effort to actually protect the Public Domain, I think it is
important to insist that such protection should be inferred, even if not
explicitly stated.

The Intellectual Property of works in the Public Domain are owned by the
Public.  (Before the institution of copyright law, all Intellectual
property was owned by the public... that is what the Public Domain used to
be.  So If the Public owns the copyright, claiming copyright, even on a
Public Domain physical work that you own should be legally defined as
copyfraud.  If what they are doing is recognizing the legitimacy of the
public domain, if what they are doing is choosing to NOT commit copyfraud.

I think the word "copyfraud" was deliberately coined to be contentious, as
a means to raise awareness of a common practice that is eroding the Public
Domain.  And I realize it is not productive to accuse GLAMs of copyfraud if
there is a possibility that their policy can be changed, and especially if
they are in the process of changing their thinking, if for no other reason
than that both people and institutions get defensive when treated in an
adversarial manner.

So if the works in question are in fact already in the Public Domain, it
would be far better to present this as a case where The National Library is
making its Public Domain holdings available to the public.  This is, after
all, praiseworthy, because they are well within their rights to keep such
works locked away in a vault.

Of course, if the works in question are not in the Public Domain, the
original wording is fine.

Regards

Laurel

On 11/02/2014 09:22 AM, Ewan Klein wrote:

Hi everyone

The National Library of Scotland is working on procedures and guidance
to support a new and developing Metadata and Digital Content Licensing
policy. As part of this work the Library has released collection
metadata associated with the First World War Official Photographs
under a CC0 license to The European Library (TEL) for inclusion in
both its portal and in Europeana. The Library will continue to release
further CC0 licensed metadata to TEL and Europeana over the coming
months.

The policy development is also being informed by a limited release of
digital content to the WikiCommons project.  More than 1,000 digital
images have been released into the Public Domain, including
photographs of the construction of the Forth Bridge and The Tay Bridge
Disaster enquiry; images from the historic book Scotia Depicta;
nineteenth century posters and photographs from Edinburgh theatres;
and images from Walter Blaikie’s collection of Jacobite broadsides.

See more at: http://scot.okfn.org/2014/10/27/open-licensing-at-the-national-library-of-scotland

Regards,

Ewan

-------------

Ewan Klein

Open Knowledge Ambassador for Scotland

Skype:  ewan.h.klein |  @ewanhklein

http://scot.okfn.org/  |  @okfnscot

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---------------

Ewan Klein

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Informatics Forum 2.11, 10 Crichton Street

Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, UK

Skype: ewan.h.klein | ewan at inf.ed.ac.uk | @ewanhklein
<https://twitter.com/ewanhklein>

Tel: +44 131 650 2705

Fax: +44 131 650 6899

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