Re: the d.p. opinion on "prerelease" of e-texts
bob said, to jim-
I'm not going to argue this any further with you, though.
truth be told, you've haven't provided any argumentation anyway. you ignored jim's main point, to argue some legalistic crap which jim knows quite well and was never in dispute. indeed, it is precisely the troubling fact that material which _is_ "in the public domain" in a _legal_ sense, but is only _available_ for sale, because d.p. can't get it out the door, that's the point... and if you have nothing to say in regard to that point, then it's probably a good thing that you stop posting replies of any type. (except that you've illustrated jim's point about d.p. apologists.) -bowerbird
Hold on a sec! Am 02.03.2010 um 23:12 schrieb Bowerbird@aol.com:
bob said, to jim-
I'm not going to argue this any further with you, though.
truth be told, you've haven't provided any argumentation anyway.
you ignored jim's main point, to argue some legalistic crap which jim knows quite well and was never in dispute.
indeed, it is precisely the troubling fact that material which _is_ "in the public domain" in a _legal_ sense, but is only _available_ for sale, because d.p. can't get it out the door, that's the point...
There is a difference between a text being copyright free and in the public domain.. One can put a copyright and have it be still in the public domain. Personally, as I see it PG text are more or less copyright free and in the public domain. I can use the PG text as I wish as long aas I give them credit. Which I would do. Yet, there is actually no practical way of stopping me from taking a PG text removing all hints to it. Reformatting it and publishing it( even in paper form) under copyright and thereby protecting my WORK. Naturally, I would not do this, but others due. Even if someone puts a text up for sale and copyrights it from PG or DP, there is NOTHING THEY could due against PG or DP from publishing their own version! You see, PG/DP is working with the rights of the law as they can prove where their material is coming from an it was obtained legally and they had not infringed on the copyright. As an example NOBODY in the world is going to get a copyright on Shakespeares works, so that somebody else can not produce Shakepeares works on their own!!! So once the original copyright expires that text is a free for all. Nobody, can get a copyright that will stop anybody else from publishing that text. What they can get is protection for their wok and only their work/book/publication. To come back to the point of prereleasing texts. The best way of catching someone is by using texts that are NOT error-free, Since that error just might propagate. One has then a indisputable MARK to identify your work. regards Keith.
Keith Schultz asked why text and not scans? Here are the most obvious advantages of text over scans: 1. Speed 2. Storage 3. Searching 4. Quotations 5. Corrections The Details 1. Speed Reading from online scans can be a real pain as changing pages involves downloading another large file of scanning. Flipping through the pages becomes virtually impossible. If you have the time you can download the whole thing and then start reading, but flipping through the pages might still be a pain if they are not relationally linked, and many places still seem to forget that THEIR links do not work on YOUR SYSTEM unless the links are proper for that. 2. Storage You can store about a million eBooks of about a million character each on a terabyte drive at minimal cost and with very little hassle setting up the drive, even just a pocket terabyte drive will do, though it is slower. However, storing a million scans of books is virtually impossible for the everyday person, not to mention the problems reading them listed above. More terabytes and more cables than the average person is really willing to put up with, even for a library. 3. Searching In my own personal and professional opinion the greatest advantage to having text versus scans is searchability. I won't go into every kind of file pretending to be text but the plain text files are the most searchable and the storage space required is the least, particularly in the .zip or similar compressed formats. All the other formats seem to create errors that we have all seen where the search program can't find a word that is right there in front of us on the screen. Pretty much ANY editor or reader program does .txt files without much hassle, both for reading and searching. 4. Quotations I can cut and paste any text quotation into this article without any hassle at all from text files, but you can't do that from a scan. Same for cutting and pasting into your emails, Twitter & other IM formats, and even into .pdf files. For those who never quote anything, not a problem. However, when someone recommends I read something I will likely ask for a few choice quotations to evaluate. 5. Corrections It's difficult in the extreme to correct a scan error... you literally have to do it somethingm like Photoshop as if you were changing pixels, which you really are. It's still not easy to make those same corrections in an Adobe "Portable Document File" as they are NOT PORTABLE! Just try it a few times and you will understand. The more elevated the format, the harder is correction. /// Also, about copyright and public domain. . . . No, you can't have it both ways. . . . You can do a number of things like the PG and GNU, even the EFF, stuff like various forms of "Copyleft," but it is either copyrighted and with permission or it has the legal status of public domain to give everyone a legal, if not totally understood right to redistribute. Some of these give you ONLY the right to your own copy, without the right to hand out other copies. This means you have to read the fine print. With PG's license there is no difficulty: ALL PG eBOOKS CAN BE REDISTRIBUTED WITHOUG PG HASSLE-- there may be other laws in other countries that apply, but not from the PG license. mh
Hi Michael, You did not quite catch the irony in my message. regards Keith. Am 03.03.2010 um 16:41 schrieb Michael S. Hart:
Keith Schultz asked why text and not scans?
Here are the most obvious advantages of text over scans:
1. Speed
2. Storage
3. Searching
4. Quotations
5. Corrections
The Details
1. Speed
Reading from online scans can be a real pain as changing pages involves downloading another large file of scanning.
Flipping through the pages becomes virtually impossible.
If you have the time you can download the whole thing and then start reading, but flipping through the pages might still be a pain if they are not relationally linked, and many places still seem to forget that THEIR links do not work on YOUR SYSTEM unless the links are proper for that.
2. Storage
You can store about a million eBooks of about a million character each on a terabyte drive at minimal cost and with very little hassle setting up the drive, even just a pocket terabyte drive will do, though it is slower.
However, storing a million scans of books is virtually impossible for the everyday person, not to mention the problems reading them listed above.
More terabytes and more cables than the average person is really willing to put up with, even for a library.
3. Searching
In my own personal and professional opinion the greatest advantage to having text versus scans is searchability.
I won't go into every kind of file pretending to be text but the plain text files are the most searchable and the storage space required is the least, particularly in the .zip or similar compressed formats.
All the other formats seem to create errors that we have all seen where the search program can't find a word that is right there in front of us on the screen.
Pretty much ANY editor or reader program does .txt files without much hassle, both for reading and searching.
4. Quotations
I can cut and paste any text quotation into this article without any hassle at all from text files, but you can't do that from a scan.
Same for cutting and pasting into your emails, Twitter & other IM formats, and even into .pdf files.
For those who never quote anything, not a problem.
However, when someone recommends I read something I will likely ask for a few choice quotations to evaluate.
5. Corrections
It's difficult in the extreme to correct a scan error... you literally have to do it somethingm like Photoshop as if you were changing pixels, which you really are.
It's still not easy to make those same corrections in an Adobe "Portable Document File" as they are NOT PORTABLE! Just try it a few times and you will understand.
The more elevated the format, the harder is correction.
///
Also, about copyright and public domain. . . .
No, you can't have it both ways. . . .
You can do a number of things like the PG and GNU, even the EFF, stuff like various forms of "Copyleft," but it is either copyrighted and with permission or it has the legal status of public domain to give everyone a legal, if not totally understood right to redistribute.
Some of these give you ONLY the right to your own copy, without the right to hand out other copies.
This means you have to read the fine print.
With PG's license there is no difficulty:
ALL PG eBOOKS CAN BE REDISTRIBUTED WITHOUG PG HASSLE-- there may be other laws in other countries that apply, but not from the PG license.
mh _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
On 3/3/2010 1:46 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hold on a sec!
[snip]
There is a difference between a text being copyright free and in the public domain.. One can put a copyright and have it be still in the public domain.
On 3/3/2010 2:38 AM, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
do not listen to non-lawyers discussing legal matters.
Good advice. Mr. Schultz, you are wrong. If something is in the public domain, by definition it cannot have a copyright, and vice-versa. There is, in fact, no such legally recognized entity as "the public domain." The phrase is simply shorthand for "those works for which copyright has expired or is otherwise unenforceable." I have heard it argued (by lawyers) that under the Berne convention one cannot create a copyrightable work and then dedicate it to the public domain. Under Berne, a copyright attaches automatically, instantaneously and unavoidably at the moment of creation. Because there is no real entity called "the public domain," the automatic copyright cannot be transferred to it. At best you have a promise on the part of the creator, unsupported by any consideration, not to sue. If no one has placed detrimental reliance on the promise, the creator can revoke it at any time, putting us back to square one. Just one of the noxious (and perhaps unintended) consequences of the Berne convention.
Hi Lee, For one the term is "in the public domain". Furthermore, putting something in the public domain is if you care to be technical a license of use. How far that license goes depends on the statements of the author. The coining of the terminology was not originally used in copyright law, but in the protection of intellectual property. It was adopted to by the internet users and publishers to texts. Secondly you ought to get your own facts straight. How can a lawyer argue that said property not be dedicated to the public domain if not said entity is not defined!! S/He could not. regards Keith. Am 03.03.2010 um 17:15 schrieb Lee Passey:
On 3/3/2010 1:46 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hold on a sec!
[snip]
There is a difference between a text being copyright free and in the public domain.. One can put a copyright and have it be still in the public domain.
On 3/3/2010 2:38 AM, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
do not listen to non-lawyers discussing legal matters.
Good advice.
Mr. Schultz, you are wrong. If something is in the public domain, by definition it cannot have a copyright, and vice-versa.
There is, in fact, no such legally recognized entity as "the public domain." The phrase is simply shorthand for "those works for which copyright has expired or is otherwise unenforceable."
I have heard it argued (by lawyers) that under the Berne convention one cannot create a copyrightable work and then dedicate it to the public domain. Under Berne, a copyright attaches automatically, instantaneously and unavoidably at the moment of creation. Because there is no real entity called "the public domain," the automatic copyright cannot be transferred to it. At best you have a promise on the part of the creator, unsupported by any consideration, not to sue. If no one has placed detrimental reliance on the promise, the creator can revoke it at any time, putting us back to square one.
Just one of the noxious (and perhaps unintended) consequences of the Berne convention. _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
IRRC, the public domain existed, and included nearly everything in print, etc., long before copyright was implented 300 years ago in Western law. The terminology may have varied over the years, but the concept is there. Copyright [Western] was invented 250 years earlier to stifle Gutenberg's Press as a threat to The Stationers' Guild's historic monopoly. They wanted it back. And, finally, with the weak queen, Anne, they got it. And we have been stuck with it ever since!!! On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hi Lee,
For one the term is "in the public domain". Furthermore, putting something in the public domain is if you care to be technical a license of use. How far that license goes depends on the statements of the author.
The coining of the terminology was not originally used in copyright law, but in the protection of intellectual property. It was adopted to by the internet users and publishers to texts.
Secondly you ought to get your own facts straight. How can a lawyer argue that said property not be dedicated to the public domain if not said entity is not defined!! S/He could not.
regards Keith.
Am 03.03.2010 um 17:15 schrieb Lee Passey:
On 3/3/2010 1:46 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hold on a sec!
[snip]
There is a difference between a text being copyright free and in the public domain.. One can put a copyright and have it be still in the public domain.
On 3/3/2010 2:38 AM, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
do not listen to non-lawyers discussing legal matters.
Good advice.
Mr. Schultz, you are wrong. If something is in the public domain, by definition it cannot have a copyright, and vice-versa.
There is, in fact, no such legally recognized entity as "the public domain." The phrase is simply shorthand for "those works for which copyright has expired or is otherwise unenforceable."
I have heard it argued (by lawyers) that under the Berne convention one cannot create a copyrightable work and then dedicate it to the public domain. Under Berne, a copyright attaches automatically, instantaneously and unavoidably at the moment of creation. Because there is no real entity called "the public domain," the automatic copyright cannot be transferred to it. At best you have a promise on the part of the creator, unsupported by any consideration, not to sue. If no one has placed detrimental reliance on the promise, the creator can revoke it at any time, putting us back to square one.
Just one of the noxious (and perhaps unintended) consequences of the Berne convention. _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d
participants (4)
-
Bowerbird＠aol.com -
Keith J. Schultz -
Lee Passey -
Michael S. Hart