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Ancient Books Go Online

Posted by timothy on from the on-the-internet-no-one-knows-you're-a-clay-tablet dept.

jd writes "The BBC is reporting that the United Nations' World Digital Library has gone online with an initial offering of 1,200 ancient manuscripts, parchments and documents. To no great surprise, Europe comes in first with 380 items. South America comes in second with 320, with a very distant third place being given to the Middle East at a paltry 157 texts. This is only the initial round, so the leader board can be expected to change. There are, for example, a lot of Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, many of which are already online elsewhere. Astonishingly, the collection is covered by numerous copyright laws, according to the legal page. Use of material from a given country is subject to whatever restrictions that country places, in addition to any local and international copyright laws. With some of the contributions being over 8,000 years old, this has to be the longest copyright extension ever offered. There is nothing on whether the original artists get royalties, however."

5 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds about right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Copyright seems to have an indefinite life these days...

    1. Re:Sounds about right by MrHanky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wrong. Translations are new works, and translations are covered by copyright. Derivative works, surely, but new and copyrightable works nonetheless. It's a situation not very dissimilar to a fork of a software project: the original author retains certain rights, and can stop the fork if it's unlicensed, but s/he doesn't get the full copyright to the fork.

  2. Copyright by Seriousity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With some of the contributions being over 8,000 years old, this has to be the longest copyright extension ever offered.

    Is anyone surprised at this? Seriously, does copyright ever end these days?

    --
    This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
  3. Yes tech.... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To the people tagging this !tech:

    The success of technology is intimately tied to the free flow of information. Issues like there are important, because poorly designed restrictions inhibit our ability to make technological progress without spending a huge amount of resources on needless legal bickering.

    If 8000-year-old documents are being withheld from the public domain there's a problem. A problem affecting both the richness of our culture and our ability to do science and apply it in the technology sector.

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  4. Re:Was the racist overtone intended??? by clarkkent09 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hmm, perhaps GP is overly sensitive but the tone of the summary does seem strange. I am all against holding back the truth for fear of offending someone's racial or (especially) religious sensitivities but I am not in favor of underhanded insults either.

    Saying that it is "no surprise" that Europe comes first and Middle East comes last with a "paltry" number of manuscripts is completely unnecessary in this context and can easily be read as insulting to people in Middle East, with racism not far below the surface.

    After all, East Asia has 81, Africa 122, North America 133 etc. why single out Middle East with 157, with words like "no surprise" and "paltry"?

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.