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Dead Sea Scrolls Copyrighted?
Dr Caleb writes: "We all know that no copyright has expired since the beginning of the 1900's, but what about 3000 B.C. ? 'It's like copyrighting scientific truth, like Einstein copyrighting 'e equals mc2,' Hausner said. 'These ancient texts are part of the scientific knowledge.' Apparently Elisha Qimron from Ben Gurion University puzzled together the bits and pieces of the scrolls, and has won copyright because he managed to infer the 40% that was missing."
I think the title of this article is (somewhat) misleading. From reading the linked story it appears that the researcher only has copyright on certain deductions he made about the scrolls, and perhaps his translation. Well, duh! I don't have copyright on Homer's Iliad but if I write a scientific paper regarding the Iliad I have copyright on what I wrote. I don't see how this is any different.
The knowledge contained on the Scrolls, or any other ancient text, should be considered in the public domain. Sure, the Israeli gov't may choose to restrict access to the physical scrolls, but I suppose that's their perogative. (Maybe they worry about the fragments being physically damaged.) However, if the only access the outside world is given is through this one man's research, which he has copyright over, I don't think that's right. What about peer review? What happens if he's biased, or just wrong? If what this story is saying (and I believe it is) is that this guy has copyrighted the only authorized translation, the only thing that other researchers can work from, then that's a problem.
The scientist regrets the information being so open now. Aww, too bad. He can't keep it all to himself. Well, tough. I guess just as some businessmen are greedy for money, some scientists are greedy for knowledge and would like to deny anybody else a chance in order to aggrandize themselves. What happened to the idea of sharing information so that the common pool of knowledge could be increased by having more people work on the problem?
Constitutionally Correct