

Why are scans of Shakespeare's works locked behind academic paywalls? - edent
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/shakespeare-and-emoticons/

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maxharris
The scans are the rightful property of whoever took the trouble (money, time)
to create them.

Scanning a valuable document is an expensive and difficult undertaking. There
are loads of ways that you can damage the original! The equipment isn't free,
either. Neither is the archivist's time!

If you want to make it your mission to produce your own scans just so you can
give them away, you can. No one is stopping you.

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sethish
What you are referring to is known as 'sweat of brow' copyright. The US
rejected this doctrine in the supreme court case Feist v. Rural Telephone
Ser­vice. The UK also rejects this doctrine under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

So no, these scans are not the rightful property of whoever took the trouble
to scan them.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#US_copyright...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#US_copyright_law)

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toki5
I'm not sure he was talking about copyright -- if I scan (or manually
reproduce) something in the public domain, I of course own that copy and can
do with it as I please.

I just can't go and prevent other people from copying my copy.

~~~
maxharris
_I just can't go and prevent other people from copying my copy._

What about digital restoration, which often includes reconstruction of missing
parts of the document? What if you do significant work to uncover a document
hidden within a layer, as is the case with the Archimedes Palimpsest?
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest>)

I'm not making the argument that such images ought never to be available
freely to the public. All I'm saying is that the terms of release ought to be
up to the individual or institution that's doing the work, and that it's the
government's job to protect that right.

