Comments on: Alfred Russel Wallace’s letters go online, with a very buried CC license that maybe doesn’t apply anyway

By: davidw

davidw — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:28:18 +0000

It’s occasionally worth noting that Brett’s concerns are unfettered from fact. I am paid nothing by Berkman, and Berkman is not paid by anyone to promote anything. An unfortunate but typical necessity of academic research centers is that they need to accept outside funding to pursue projects, and Google has supported a few Berkman projects, but none (as far as I know) concerning copyright. And none with any strings attached.

Then there is the larger question worth asking once we get past Brett’s incessant, false ad hominem attack: Does Brett really oppose making Wallace’s letters from before 1913 (when he died) openly available?If so, why on earth?

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:52:01 +0000

You must understand that David works for an academic think tank which is paid by a large corporation — Google — to promote copyright minimization. So, he naturally is interested in finding ways to minimize the rights of the copyright holder.

By: davidw

davidw — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 02:11:30 +0000

Thanks, Jerry. I have relieved him of his peerage. I don’t know how I got that phrase in my head.

By: Jerry Drawhorn

Jerry Drawhorn — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:14:36 +0000

Just a little historical correction. Alfred Russel Wallace was not a “Lord” (nor a “Sir”) and would have likely found that his induction into the peerage was akin to giving Guy Fawkes an Knighthood for advancements made in the field of pyrotechnics.

By: George Beccaloni

George Beccaloni — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 18:42:48 +0000

Dear David,

Yes, I think we can make the situation a bit clearer – I’ll put it on my ‘to do’ list. And yes, the transcribed text of letters written by Wallace can be reproduced non-commercially without permission under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license mentioned above.

Best wishes,

George

By: davidw

davidw — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 17:37:23 +0000

Thank you, George, but for this explanation and for your work.

I’ve appended a comment to the post itself.

By: George Beccaloni

George Beccaloni — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:42:27 +0000

Dear David,

Unfortunately British copyright law is rather complex, but we at the Wallace Correspondence Project believe that we have explained the situation accurately thanks to help from two IPR experts. What you need to understand is that the copyright of the literary content of a document may be (and in the case of Wallace Letters Online, usually is) different to the copyright of the image of the same document. Thus the text may be the copyright of the Wallace Literary Estate (and therefore may be reproduced non-commercially without permission under the terms of the Creative Commons license you mentioned), but the image of the letter may be copyright of the British Library. Unless BOTH the British Library and the holder of the copyright of the literary content of the document agree that a third party can reproduce the image then they can’t do so without infringing copyright. I have heard that the copyright law in the UK might be changing soon for the better – i.e. that the 2039 rule will be done away with and most old documents (like the ones we are dealing with) will no longer be in copyright as regards their literary content. Recent images taken of them will still, however, be in copyright to the creators of these images. Note that reason that text in certain fields of our database (e.g. in summary and notes fields) is copyright of the Natural History Museum, is because it was written by project staff. Also note that data in databases is also protected by a different set of laws which are independent of copyright – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right. Oh, for a simple life!

Best wisges,

George Beccaloni
(Director of the Wallace Correspondence Project)