In response to ‘What Would Luther Burbank Do’
Monday, 24 October 2011
I read this.
I don’t understand what the argument is here. The Smithsonian offers scans for sale. It finds interesting images and other documents that are out of copyright, scans them and sells the digital images. They are not claiming to own copyright on the seed packets. The Smithsonian has an archiving facility, it has storage, retouching, digital processing… it’s a massive investment. The Smithsonian is not saying “you can’t sell scans of these seed packets”. The Smithsonian is saying “you can’t sell OUR scans of these seed packets”.
If Mindy Sommers wants to offer her OWN scans for sale, then all she has to do is to spend her own time and effort trawling through charity shops or antique stores until she finds copyright-free material. Then she can scan and retouch, archive, catalog, check for copyright, research, build a website and offer this stuff for sale to her heart’s content. Pretty pictures, aren’t they?
No. 1 — April 26th, 2014 at 9:45 pm
The argument is quite simple – under U.S. copyright law, simple duplication does not entitle works to copyright protection. Originality is required, and unless the Smithsonian has created new creative works (NOT just scanned reproductions of other works) then under U.S. law they have no grounds on which to base a copyright claim. Thus, they have no grounds on which to base a limitation on redistribution of the scans. Simple “sweat of the brow” labour is insufficient, as is the scope of the “massive” investment – neither is relevant or adequate to allow for copyright-based redistribution restrictions.