RadioNerds:Copyrights

Copyrights

All 'original' (stuff we type in, not manuals themselves) material on this site is Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

Which means:

You are free

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

With the understanding that

Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:

Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;

The author's moral rights;

Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

Discussion over "claims" of copyright on scanned Public Domain documents

There is tons of case law that covers the copyright protection available on scans of public domain works. In summary, they are not copyrightable under US law (see case law below). Generally speaking if the scanning process requires creativity, the resulting image will be copyrightable. However if the process is a mechanical copying process producing an image with minor differences from the original, the resulting image will not be copyrightable. The scans must have creative substance to qualify.

In the U.S. exact photographic reproductions of printed material are not copyrightable. The Constitution has an originality requirement (thankfully) for creative works and in the "Bridgeman" case the court ruled as such:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm

As pointed out by courts, hard work alone is not copyrightable nor original. Of course reproductions *could* contain sufficient originality to be protected. However, the U.S. Copyright Office has refused to register most photographic reproductions of public domain material, and yes scanning is "photographic".

Copyright of Government Documents

In the United States, U.S. Government works are covered by 17 USC § 105.59 "Copyright protection … is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." Exceptions are available for certain works of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Postal Service. Copyright protection may be available for U.S. Government works outside the United States. When a copyrighted work is transferred to the U.S. Government, the Government becomes the copyright owner and the work retains its copyright protection.

http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#312