Ancient Books Go Online

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."

Comments

Sounds about right

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Sounds about right

[pmarini]

In any case:
- The website is publicly available, much like a museum
- I am browsing it from my private property and have a legally purchased camera with me
- Journalists can take pictures of anything they see, so why shouldn't I (not sure if a screenshot would pass the same test)
- [...takes pictures of computer monitor with pages of ancient book]
- There's nothing in the copyright laws that prevents this, or are you saying that the Library asked the original author for permission?
(Same goes for the publisher's copyright - extinct - and the owner of the physical copy cannot claim any copyright whatsoever on the content, otherwise heck I could claim royalties on Susan Boyle's performance because it's playing in my TV set...)
Think of it as going to Le Louvre for a picture of Tintoretto on display.

Re:Sounds about right

[jd]

Most of the publishers' nations are also extinct. Lawyers, though, I can't vouch for. Demons have very long lifespans.

Re:Sounds about right

[dov_0]

Perhaps the people who digitized or translated the works can copyright the 'new' work that they have 'created'.

Re:Sounds about right

[jd]

Translations are not new works, which is why copyright notices in books specifically state that translations are not permitted. They're covered by the original copyright.

Digitizations are an interesting problem. Photographs of a person, a landscape, or something similar, is a creative work. The conditions can never be reproduced exactly and never occurred before, and thus the work is of something new.

A digitized rendering of something, however, is an exact (as near as makes no odds, if done right) duplicate. A second digitization will be indistinguishable from a copy made of the first digitization. There is therefore no identifiable, unique, moment of creation. If there's no moment of creation, there is little need for a creator. (Apologies to Stephen Hawking for paraphrasing him here.)

Most digital collections can be covered by copyright as databases, as indeed can any structured, organized set of data. This data, as it stands, is not obviously structured. The geographic attribute is assigned by the donor, so what was there for this library to organize?

No doubt someone who is a lawyer in this field can answer that particular question, but I just can't see anything that is obviously new, unique, non-obvious and provided by the collection that is not otherwise present.

Re:Sounds about right

[boaworm]

In any case:
- Journalists can take pictures of anything they see, so why shouldn't I (not sure if a screenshot would pass the same test)

The freedom of press would include you as well, as long as you are using the pictures for journalistic purposes, ie publishing them in a journalistic (news)paper or something similar.

If you try to take a picture of, say Bill Gates, you are allowed to do so. What mattes then is what you do with the picture. Keep it for yourself? Fine. Give it to your friends? Fine. Sell it to a newspaper? Fine. Sell it on ebay? NOT Fine.

Same goes for certain buildings that are being "copyrighted". The Eiffel tower for instance, you are allowed to take pictures of it in daytime and sell them for whatever purpose you want. But the light show during night time is copyrighted, and you are no longer allowed to sell it, make posters out of your picture and sell it, etc.

Basically, you can do whatever you want, as far as you are not making money out of it. Unless you are a journalist, then you can do even a little more.

Re:Sounds about right

[Jane Q. Public]

Not entirely true. In the U.S. at any rate, if you take a picture of Bill Gates walking down the street, in full view of the public, he has no right to your picture. Anything in public, for that matter, is fair game. And you can sell, or license, or do whatever the hell you want with it.

Re:Sounds about right

[xaxa]

What's wrong with copyright for something like this?

I work for a (sort-of) museum, and it has lots of images like this -- pictures of objects in the collection. A lot of time and money is spent making these images, and some money is made by selling them (e.g. in a book, or licensing the photographs for use by other people). If there was no copyright it would be more difficult for us to pay for making the images.

However, that doesn't mean the photographs need to be copyrighted for 70 years or more.

Re:Sounds about right

[pbhj]

I think the test is whether the reproduction is a slavish reproduction or if some technique, some art, is needed in the reproduction.

For example a mere photo of the Mona Lisa wouldn't be a new work. A high definition scan using specially designed hardware that picks up details not otherwise visible could be a protectable work.

No, I don't think that's just.

From the UKIPO website ( http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-applies/c-original.htm )
'The term "original" also involves a test of substantiality - literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works will not be original if there has not been sufficient skill and labour expended in their creation. But, sometimes significant investment of resources without significant intellectual input can still count as sufficient skill and labour.'

Re:Sounds about right

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:Sounds about right

[Hognoxious]

A digitized rendering of something, however, is an exact (as near as makes no odds, if done right) duplicate.

But doing it right isn't trivial.

Re:Sounds about right

[dov_0]

Reviewing what I said, I'm not sure that I explicitly stated that there was anything necessarily 'wrong' with it at all. My own inclination is generally to open source things or put a CC on them. I do however have a trademark on my business name.
If I'd spent some weeks, months or years photographing and otherwise cataloging books etc, I'd probably want to at least make my costs back. The only concern could be if the terms of the copyright stifled someone else' research.

Re:Sounds about right

[corsec67]

Not quite. For journalistic or fine art purposes, you are correct, but if you want to use that picture for advertising, you would need a model release signed by the model, in that case Bill Gates.

Re:Sounds about right

[mabhatter654]

I'd think if they were discovered in the 20th century or later, that the person discovering them would hold the copyright of the images. That's where archeology gets a little crazy, particularly in Europe. Copyright on things like the Mona Lisa, or Eiffel Tower are "perpetually" held, even though they were created and "discovered" during "modern" copyright terms. Nations of Europe like to give their museums exclusive rights to things...Like the Crown of England still has copyright on the King James translation of the Bible.

Re:Sounds about right

[pmarini]

My point is exactly that: if the museum can take a picture of it and have the copyright on the new digitised image as derivative work, why can't I too, if I have access to the original via the museum?
The museum surely doesn't hold the copyright to the original art, so why should I ask permission to photograph it?

Re:Sounds about right

[pmarini]

You are missing the point, it being the fact that the original items we are discussing here are not copyrighted anymore, which is not the case in your example, where the pictures that someone has put on the Web would be free to copy after 75 years (depending on the country) - provided they are the originals.
This specific Library says in the legal disclaimer to contact the "partners" as they are the owner of the digitised images, while the Library itself simply has ownership of the physical book, not its content.
In my opinion it's just another way of squeezing more money out:
1) Lock the original artwork under big chains when its copyright is extinct
2) Make a digitised copy of whatever form - which falls under a new copyright term
3) ...
4) Profit

Re:Sounds about right

[tverbeek]

"Journalists can take pictures of anything they see"

Journalists are subject to the same restrictions on copying as anyone else. If they reproduce something that's protected by copyright, they need to justify it as a "fair use" of the material.

Re:Sounds about right

[Anonymous Coward]

You work in a museum, a building likely to be loaded with other peoples' real property, probably collected over the years from the original owners via theft, raids, and pillaging. How about you return all items that don't have invoices attached to them to the rightful countries, and then hire the items in question to take your photos?

Re:Sounds about right

[Keith_Beef]

Copyright on things like the Mona Lisa, or Eiffel Tower are "perpetually" held, even though they were created and "discovered" during "modern" copyright terms.

Not quite true.

In French law, which applies to the Eiffel Tower, the architect of a building owns the rights to the commercial reproduction of images of that building for a set period of time (being 70 years after the death of the architect IIRR).

The case of the Eiffel Tower is particularly illuminating, in that the tower can be photographed during the day and that the image can be used for commercial purposes, yet a similar photograph taken at night may not be used so freely...

The problem is that the lights on the tower are protected by the same laws as the tower itself.

This question is posed quite frequently in French photography magazines (e.g. Chasseur d'Images) and there are plenty of references on the web. Below is an very good article. http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/temoignage/temoignage/24557/ai-je-le-droit-d-utiliser-l-image-d-un-batiment-public-tel-que-la-tour-eiffel-par-exemple-pour-l-integrer-dans-le-graphisme-d-un-site-internet/

K.

Re:Sounds about right

[xaxa]

My point is exactly that: if the museum can take a picture of it and have the copyright on the new digitised image as derivative work, why can't I too, if I have access to the original via the museum?

You can (I don't know about copyright law elsewhere, but here in the UK you automatically have copyright on any photograph you make.)

The museum surely doesn't hold the copyright to the original art, so why should I ask permission to photograph it?

Because
1) Photographs (flash) can damage some delicate artefacts
2) It's private property, they can request that you don't take photographs
It's not copyright stopping you.

Re:Sounds about right

[xaxa]

You work in a museum, a building likely to be loaded with other peoples' real property, probably collected over the years from the original owners via theft, raids, and pillaging. How about you return all items that don't have invoices attached to them to the rightful countries, and then hire the items in question to take your photos?

OK, done.

(There are different kinds of museum, you know, and they don't all cover human history and culture.)

Re:Sounds about right

[PMuse]

Most of the publishers' nations are also extinct.

Actually, all of the publishers' nations have been acquired in various hostile takeovers. All your copyrights are belong to us. Literally.

Re:Sounds about right

[Andr T.]

Yeah, that's right. In Brazil we had a lot of scandals recently because of copied translations appearing in unauthorized editions.

Jorge L. Borges said once that the original book was a translation of an idea in the author's mind. Or, even better: 'The original is unfaithful to the translation.'

Re:Sounds about right

[John Hasler]

> I work for a (sort-of) museum, and it has lots of images like this -- pictures of
> objects in the collection. A lot of time and money is spent making these images, and
> some money is made by selling them (e.g. in a book, or licensing the photographs for use
> by other people).

In the USA what is protected is creative expression. "Sweat of the brow" such as you describe is irrelevant.

Re:Sounds about right

[xaxa]

In the USA what is protected is creative expression. "Sweat of the brow" such as you describe is irrelevant.

I'm British, and "sweat of the brow" is enough for copyright (that term is in the article):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom#Qualification_for_protection
it mentions this is unusual, I didn't realise that.

Re:Sounds about right

[SteeldrivingJon]

I assume the copyright is on the specific *scan* of the item, not on the original item. You'd be free to transcribe the text depicted.

Re:Sounds about right

[Attila Dimedici]

No, Babylon is not in Africa. Babylon is in what is now Iraq. Iraq is on the continent of Asia, not Africa.
However, the problem with the OP's post is that Egypt IS in Africa and there are many ancient documents from there. And from RTFA, one discovers that 10% of the collection is from Africa.

Re:Sounds about right

[attackc0de]

The whole idea of copyrighting something 1000s of years old just seems absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't seem legal either, at least not in the somewhat-international copyright system. I miss the days when the purpose of a museum was to showcase artifacts that would benefit man's knowledge of history. It's sad that it's become just shopping mall/tourist trap/circus show with a cover charge. :(

Re:Sounds about right

[catbertscousin]

I have a similar job. I scan 8x10 film images (yes, we have a camera that shoots 8x10 sheet film) taken of the old master paintings in our collection, digitizing the pictures for various types of reproduction. I will often spend over an hour in the scanning, and anywhere from half-a-day to multiple days tweaking the color and removing dust spots and artifacts introduced in the photo and scanning processes.

I'm all for putting thumbnails or low-rez versions out for the public, but the final high-quality, corrected digital image cost a lot of man-hours to produce and since we put in the work, I think we should be allowed to copyright it. (Not forever, of course - in time another image will be made in another digital medium and this one will be discarded.) We do, after all, own the paintings.

Re:Sounds about right

[jc42]

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

True, but this isn't really anything new. A few centuries back, before modern printing presses and before the fiction that copyright is to encourage creators, it was common for rulers to give (more often, sell) exclusive publication rights to a single local copy shop. This was especially important for the major books such as the Bible and Koran. The age of the text didn't matter; the rulers wanted to make sure that 1) only an authorized translation was produced, and 2) the supply was limited so that the hoi polloi couldn't read the texts themselves.

This isn't all that different in principal from what modern "publishers" like those TV companies are trying to do. They want to be the sole supplier of the information, partly so that you'll have to buy their service and watch their ads if you want to see the information. In both cases, the motive has nothing to do with creativity; it's all about control of the information that the masses have access to, and their "right" to collect money for access to the information.

There was a clear example of this back around 1220, which you can read about in various books on the Mongol "invasion" of Europe. Their first expedition was exploratory, and they took along a small military force mostly for protection from the bandits that they knew infested the far West. Those soldiers fought a lot of defensive battles, because the reports that preceded them described a flock of demonic killers who were ravaging the countryside, and local rulers sent troops to attack them. The main reason for this, it seems, was that Genghis (not yet Khan) & buddies also took along a troop of Korean printers. The Koreans had a mobile print shop set up in their wagons, and as they travelled, they printed and sold cheap editions of whatever was popular locally. This was mostly Korans in central Asia, and Bibles further west. This was a direct threat to the western rulers' control over their own populations, which was based in part on control over the local production of religious and other texts. The response was a campaign to paint the Mongols as demonic visitors intent on killing everyone in their path. By then, of course, the real intent was to depose the demonic western rulers (and replace them with a modern, enlightened form of government ;-). They did succeed in establishing a much cheaper printing industry (and religious freedom) in the areas that they conquered. But the eastern printing technology was embargoed in western Europe, and it took several more centuries for it to be developed by Gutenberg et al in the 1400s.

The use of copyright to control access to information is an old story. And from the start, copyright was applied to texts centuries or even millennia old.

Re:Sounds about right

[dwye]

They did succeed in establishing a much cheaper printing industry (and religious freedom) in the areas that they conquered. But the eastern printing technology was embargoed in western Europe, and it took several more centuries for it to be developed by Gutenberg et al in the 1400s.

Which is why Freedom of the Press originated in Russia, and only spread west in later centuries. Printing was first done in Russia, and only later copied by that German, Gutenburg. And, of course, the airplane was invented in Russia, too. While you think on this, could you please direct me to your nuclear wessels?

-- History, as claimed by Pavel Chekov

Of course, the idea that the Mongols were invaders was silly, and those pyramids of skulls were just an art project, and exterminating the populace of any city that offered any resistance was just performance art.

Re:Sounds about right

[molo]

A digitized image of an 2D object in a collection is a "slavish transform", having no original authorship. A 2D photograph of a 3D object is different because it has an original composition.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

-molo

Re:Sounds about right

[billstewart]

No, the problem with the OP's post is that he's a troll :-)

But troll, it ain't so. Egypt was also the counter-example I thought of first, especially since the Afro-Centrism folks make a big deal of ancient Egyptians being black people with lighter-colored slaves and servants, and there's Coptic (also mainly in Egypt), and the Ethiopian writing systems used by Amharic and other languages, which you'll typically see on the walls of Ethiopian restaurants. While Swahili and the non-Arabic western and southern African languages generally use Roman fonts, remember that the Roman alphabets are somewhat derived from Greek and Etruscan languages, which they mostly derived from the Phoenicians, who got theirs from farther-east Semitic groups.

Back when the Ethiopians started writing in their Semitic-based scripts and the Copts in their Greek-derived ones, the Northern Europeans hadn't yet figured out how to carve runes into stones, though the Irish were carving Ogham, and everywhere the Romans went, people were starting to write if they didn't know how already. And the Library at Alexandria had burned down centuries before Beowulf got written...

Re:Sounds about right

[jonadab]

> > A digitized rendering of something, however, is an exact
> > (as near as makes no odds, if done right) duplicate.
> But doing it right isn't trivial.

Copyright law is not concerned with triviality versus painstaking effort and attention to detail. Copyright law is concerned with originality, or lack thereof. A digitized rendering, insofar as it is merely an accurate reproduction of the original, is not protected by copyright law (other than the copyright on the original, of course, which, if it is still in effect, is relevant to all copies however created).

However, the other poster is not exactly correct about translations. A translation is generally a derived work, meaning that the copyright on the original work is still relevant, but the translation is also eligible for copyright protection in its own right. This is because a translation is *not* just a reproduction.

Good translation requires quite significant creativity. Translation isn't just about trying to accurately depict the thoughts of the original author (though that *is* an important consideration), but also about making the whole thing work in the target language. If you've ever seen an interlinear text (that is, the original text written on every other line, and each word or phrase translated directly above or below), you will appreciate that no matter how much effort is put into making the interlinear text accurate, it is *not* the same thing as a real translation. The translator cannot just reproduce the original; he must essentially rewrite the entire text in the target language. For this reason, the final work is eligible for its own copyright protection, in addition to any protection already afforded by virtue of its derivation from the original.

One of the most impressive translations I've ever seen is Hedge's rendition in English of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. Anything that follows a poetic metre is difficult to translate in the first place, lyrics doubly so. Not only does Hedge manage the metre and a consistent rhyming pattern handily, he also makes good use of poetic devices in the target language and makes the result flow very well (well enough to pass for prose if you read it out of meter, which is fairly difficult to do with song lyrics even when you're *not* translating somebody else's thoughts from another language), positions syllables that sound well when sung on a held note in all the necessary places, and just generally makes the whole thing sound like it was written in English in the first place, and written well.

Re:Sounds about right

[Kittenman]

Point of order. hoi polloi refers to the top of the food chain. I believe you mean to refer to the dregs at the bottom of the chain, better known as the great unwashed

Re:Sounds about right

[a-zA-Z0-9$_. !*'(),x]

What is the purpose of copyright? If the purpose is to encourage creators, the right should die with the creator. If the purpose is to restrict access to our ancient heritage, then give it away. tOM

Copyright

[Seriousity]

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?

Re:Copyright

[Petrushka]

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?

Pretty much the entire content of the site appears to consist of photographs (or facsimiles, if you prefer; I don't know the details of how the images were copied). Somehow I doubt the photographs were taken 8000 years ago.

If you were to transcribe the text of The Precious Book on Noteworthy Dates by Husayn bin Zayd bin 'Ali al-Jahhaf, written in the 10th century, you won't be infringing anyone's copyright. However, if you reproduce the images ... beware.

Re:Copyright

[Fallingcow]

Sounds like a job for... OCR!!!

Re:Copyright

[CowboyBob500]

I honestly can't believe that anyone actually thinks that the copyright is on the content of the items. It's pretty obvious that the copyright is on the photographs taken of the items.

Re:Copyright

[Petrushka]

Sounds like a job for... OCR!!!

Superb idea! I'm not sure how many OCR implementations can reliably handle 17th century Arabic script, mind you ...

(If anyone knows of any, incidentally, they might also know of one that can handle classical, a.k.a. polytonic, Greek -- I'd be very interested in being pointed towards one -- pretty please!)

Re:Copyright

[jd]

I don't, but I do know that on one of the digital archaeology mailing lists I'm on, there's been a call-for-papers for research into an OCR implementation that can handle cuneiform and other ancient writing systems.

Re:Copyright

[dov_0]

If anyone knows of any, incidentally, they might also know of one that can handle classical, a.k.a. polytonic, Greek -- I'd be very interested in being pointed towards one -- pretty please

Ditto. That would be a great tool for study!

Re:Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Photos of uncopyrighted human works are themselves not copyrighted unless the photographer adds his own artistic expression through the angle, composition, lightning, scribbling or whatever the fuck else, at least in my country. You can't just scan it, burn the originals, and be good for another infinity years.

If you get a copyright on a scan/photo of a document, wouldn't you get copyright on a print as well? That would mean that when you print 5000 copies of a book, each one is a separate derivative work with it's own copyright, set from the year of printing.

Re:Copyright

[Jane Q. Public]

The copyright laws of other countries do not necessarily apply in the United States, except as established by treaty. WIPO has no authority there.

Re:Copyright

[Seriousity]

The copyright laws of other countries do not necessarily apply in the United States, except as established by treaty. WIPO has no authority there.

I live in New Zealand, you insensitive clod!!

Re:Copyright

[johannesg]

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?

Of course not. How will the poor authors ever be stimulated to write something ever again if they cannot reap the rewards of their hard labour? Really, won't someone think of the mummy's?

Incidentally, I'm wondering if there is anyone on the planet who is not directly descended from the people who wrote this 8000 years ago. I think I'd like to claim my share of the incoming generated by this now please!

Re:Copyright

[mike2R]

I'm wondering if that part of the summary is just a troll. "Astonishingly, the collection is covered by numerous copyright laws, according to the legal page" says the summary. Looking at the only legal page I can find: http://www.wdl.org/en/legal.html it says:

About Copyright and the Collections

Content found on the WDL Web site is contributed by WDL partners. Copyright questions about partner content should be directed to that partner. When publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in a WDL partner's collections, the researcher has the obligation to determine and satisfy domestic and international copyright law or other use restrictions.

You can find out more information about copyright law in the World Intellectual Property Organization's member states at http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/.

Maybe I've missed another page or something, but that just seems like a standard bit of CYA, not an attempt to extend copyrights by millennia.

Re:Copyright

[Hurricane78]

Author's right does. But hey, 'e's dead. Remember. *Copy*right* is the right of the publisher. The one who wants to give the creator even less. And the one that has no reason to exist in these days, but fights hard for what's left of his life.
^^

Re:Copyright

[pbhj]

[Amended for scope:] The copyright laws of other countries do not apply in any particular country.

An international treaty is always {{fact}} ratified into law in the host country. Laws of other countries may be upheld by a law drafted in the host country but it is the host countries law that is enforcing it.

If someone can contradict this with evidence I'd be fascinated.

The only example I think might exist would be a religious law?

The USA ratified the Berne Convention in 1980-ish IIRC.

Re:Copyright

[janwedekind]

Reminds me of the James Bond movies. Just run a filtering algorithm over the video and slap "Digitally Remastered" on the DVD cover. And suddenly it's © 2009.

Re:Copyright

[Elky Elk]

Exactly. The low number of works produced by dead people is a direct consequence of poorer copyright protections compared to the living.

Re:Copyright

[Anonymusing]

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the United States part of WIPO? Or is that meaningless?

Re:Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Nope. It gets prolonged by 20 years every 20 years. Do the math (please don't do it numerically, however ;-) ).

It is as if we are preparing for the end of creative culture.

Of course it can never sustain itself for too long in a free society. Maybe copyright will be lowered back down to 30 years or less one day, when people realize the difference between a fundamental right, such as the right to physical property, as opposed to a state-created privilege, that as a copyright is.

Rights can never be ethically withdrawn.

Privileges can be withdrawn any time, at the whim of the one who sustains the privilege.

Re:Copyright

[maxume]

You should get in touch with the folks who made the documentary film "Blade". The vampires seemed to have really nice OCR technology.

Re:Copyright

[sabernet]

Yes and Yes.

The US likes to fling trade agreements but hardly ever abides by them.

Re:Copyright

[elrous0]

Years ago, I used to teach a class that included a section on U.S. copyright. After years of trying to make sense of it all to students and giving them the "life of the author and 50 years after the author's death" routine, I finally just threw my hands up after the 1998 Extension and started telling them "If a work was created after 1921, it will probably be under copyright forever."

Thanks, Disney! Isn't it bad enough for you to rape our kids and introduce all the vacuous pop stars to the world? Do you have to screw up our laws too?

Re:Copyright

[Mr. Slippery]

when people realize the difference between a fundamental right, such as the right to physical property, as opposed to a state-created privilege, that as a copyright is.

Hate to break it to you, but physical property is also created by the state.

Chase the chain of custody back on any physical object, and you'll see it comes from raw materials extracted from some bit of land. Ownership of that bit of land derives from a deed issued by a government -- usually based on the "right" of conquest or the "divine right" of kings

Property is not a fundamental right. It is a tool -- a very useful and important tool -- used to secure and enable fundamental rights. After all, if there's no private property, there are no private choices. But if we take property as primary and forget that it exists to secure our rights, it can be (and is) used in ways that restrict rather than enhance freedom.

Re:Copyright

[Midnight Thunder]

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

I am starting to believe copyright was what killed this civilisations. Atlantis probably decided to sink itself than pay the license fees.

I honestly feel that copyright holders would rather see the death of civilisation and culture before relinquishing their hold on their over extended copyrights, and even then.

Re:Copyright

[mr_matticus]

Photos of uncopyrighted human works are themselves not copyrighted unless the photographer adds his own artistic expression through the angle, composition, lightning, scribbling or whatever the fuck else

Yes, but the bar for such application of creativity is extremely low. Courts don't answer the question of "what is art?"--they simply pose it.

It all comes down to the labor, couched in your country's copyright framework. It is expensive, time-consuming, and requires considerable skill to prepare these digitizations. Whether your country recognizes the natural right of the parties undertaking that effort or whether you have to couch the analysis in an economic incentive rationale, copyright is the mechanism that allows museums some way to cover the costs and continue to provide this service for other works.

It is true that a pretty standard photograph of an item (for example, a scanned page from a book) doesn't grant a powerful or useful copyright--you can't stop others from taking their own photograph. But you can stop others from simply taking your image itself and reproducing or distributing it.

The scope of copyright protection would be extremely narrow for archival preservation like this, but certainly not nonexistent.

If you get a copyright on a scan/photo of a document, wouldn't you get copyright on a print as well?

They're one and the same. Printing copies is called reproduction, and copyright extends to all copies, including the original.

That would mean that when you print 5000 copies of a book, each one is a separate derivative work with it's own copyright, set from the year of printing.

No, it would mean that each copy is a copy of a copyrighted work, the effective date of which is defined by the laws of your country.

If you scanned each copy in an iterative process, then you could secure a copyright in each copy assuming originality and creativity could be established. With mechanical reproduction (or digital copies), you can't satisfy those requirements and therefore can't get a new copyright on each one. But consider a sculpture. If you recreate the originals one at a time, by hand, without the use of a complete mold, each sculpture will have its own copyright.

Again, the scope will be narrow and probably extend no further than literal or near-literal copying, but still a copyright. Not all copyrights are created equal.

Re:Copyright

[JonathanThurn]

Thank you for pointing out the sensationalist content of the original poster.

As someone else mentioned the works themselves are beyond copyright, but the photographic reproductions carry the copyright of the archival institutions which hold the original works. Archives and libraries purposely protect these reproduction copyrights so (1) it becomes difficult for other people or organizations to claim to hold the original work, (2) the holding archive can charge "use fees" for publication of these photographs, and (3) the "use fees" will fund the conservation efforts of the archives. Believe me, funds for conservation will rarely come from elsewhere.

It comes down to an academic necessity of being certain where your reproduced work exists and that you receive permission to publish that work.

Note that you can quote and translate out-of-copyright original works 'til your heart's content. You can quote and translate currently copyrighted works to the amount protected by fair use; beyond that get permission from the copyright holder. For photographic reproductions of works, the holding archive or library holds the copyright and you will need to receive permission from them to publish or reproduce the image.

For more information regarding how records institutions work, consult the Society of American Archivists. International institutions include the International Council on Archives, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and the International Records Management Trust.

Re:Copyright

[molo]

Under US law such copyrights don't exist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

-molo

Re:Copyright

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, but the Berne Convention was quite specific. Some of the "restrictions" mentioned here were not in it.

Re:Copyright

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, but what I meant was that technically, WIPO has no authority in the United States other than as specifically authorized by treaty. It doesn't matter that we are a "member". That is simply voluntary compliance. Not the same thing.

Re:Copyright

[umeboshi]

Property is not a fundamental right. It is a tool -- a very useful and important tool -- used to secure and enable fundamental rights. After all, if there's no private property, there are no private choices. But if we take property as primary and forget that it exists to secure our rights, it can be (and is) used in ways that restrict rather than enhance freedom.

Who owns the blood that courses through your veins?

Re:Copyright

[Mr. Slippery]

Who owns the blood that courses through your veins?

I think your question is based on a false assumption that every bit of matter must have an owner.

My relationship with my body is not one of property. I do not own my body, I am my body. (Or rather, "I" am what my body does.)

Do not be mislead by language. I speak of "my body", but I also speak of "my father" or "my girlfriend". Possessive pronouns do not imply possession.

Human beings are not ownable. My right to control my own body is fundamental.

If I remove that blood from my body, it becomes a product of my labor; provided that I made it with materials and tools that I own, it is then my property. But if I made it with stolen goods -- say I raided the local pharmacy and stole some erythropoietin so I could produce a couple pints of my (hypothetically) rare blood type for sale -- then I no more own that blood than I own I statue I carved out of stolen wood.

I am assuming that we are in agreement that I do not legitimately own something I make with stolen materials. (If I do own things make with stolen materials, I've got a great get-rich-quick scheme involving melting down gold...)

Even if I don't use drugs, I have to eat to make blood. (Of course I have to eat to do any work, but it's much more direct here, like the cattle feed required to make milk.) If I raid your pantry for sustenance for my blood-selling scheme (it's hungry work, and your iron-rich beets really helped), the blood is made from stolen materials, and again cannot be regarded as my property.

Food comes from the land. Land is made property by governments. So, yes, blood-as-a-product would ultimately rely on government action to be property. Blood-in-my-body is not property, even if I stole drugs or food.

Ownership is an inductive property. I legitimately own the widget if:

• I make it myself with materials and tools that I legitimately own, or
• I hire someone (trade them my labor or something I legitimately own) to make it with materials and tools that they and I legitimately own, or
• you legitimately own the widget and I trade you:
  • my labor, or
  • something I legitimately own

But an inductive argument needs a base case. The base case for ownership is government action.

Re:Copyright

[Petrushka]

there's been a call-for-papers for research into an OCR implementation that can handle cuneiform and other ancient writing systems.

Sounds nice. Make sure to submit a story to Slashdot if/when something good comes up ...

Re:Copyright

[umeboshi]

I think your question is based on a false assumption that every bit of matter must have an owner.

It was actually a rhetorical question. I didn't really expect an answer. It was based on the assumption that you own your blood, for if you didn't it would be either be shared public property, or free property that was up for grabs to the first person to stake a claim on it.

Human beings are not ownable. My right to control my own body is fundamental.

People are not ownable by others, but they are most certainly self owned.
The right to control your body derives from the fact of it being your property.

Land is made property by governments.

Correction, land is recognized as property by governments.

The base case for ownership is government action.

Ownership existed before the government formed to protect it. The base case for ownership is the staking of a claim, and defending that claim. One of the reasons that government exists is to recognize those claims, distinguish between valid and invalid claims, and provide a mechanism where this can be determined, and settle disputes over those claims.

repository of copyrighted works?

[An anonymous Frank]

Are they simply making it easier to find out if something is copyrighted?

Re:repository of copyrighted works?

[pmarini]

nope, they "clearly" indicate in their legal disclaimer that the items are copyrighted by "partners" and to direct queries to them, but don't even indicate who they are...

Re:repository of copyrighted works?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you read "contributed" as "copyrighted".
In other words, they claim no such thing. What they do claim is that the work might be copyrighted, and it's your responsibility to find out before publishing anything. In the case of the photos they have that are dated 2004, they have a very good point.

Go

[Evelas]

Did anyone else see "Ancient Books Go..." and think they'd discovered some ancient Go books?

Re:Go

[jd]

Just a curiosity question: Do you program in Forth much?

Re:Go

[Evelas]

No, but it looks like quite an interesting language, using RPN. I always have my calculators set to RPN. Definitely going to mess around with it, looks fun.

Re:Go

[treeves]

Do you, in FORTH, much program?

There. That, for you, I fixed.

The rise of social consciousness

[mcrbids]

Surprisingly, as time goes by, the amount of ancient material available INCREASES every year. Old texts that are found and discovered are digitized and released to the world, rather than being lost in obscurity, readable by a small handful until the ultimate demise of the original work.

I see this every day.

For example, years back, when I was in High School, I was a big fan of "alternative" music. Bands like Depeche Mode, Erasure, Bauhaus, and others were my meat and potatoes, but being raised in small-town, USA, I had to work like the pretty hard to find stuff to listen to. My specialty was rare concert mixes and exploratory remixes - in many cases, I resigned to dubbing cassettes in order to get my fix.

Today, it's much easier for me to find rare, concert remixes! Many (most?) are available in mere seconds a la YouTube, as well as MP3s by LimeWire! And it seems that with each year, more and more and more obscure stuff is available - from Jerry Lee Lewis concerts to Arlo Guthrie live to early stage mixes of Yaz (then "Yazoo") ...

Why is this so?

Take a look at the Long Tail Economics principle made possible by the network effect of the Internet. This is one of the most insightful articles that exists on the Internet!

Re:The rise of social consciousness

[syousef]

Take a look at the Long Tail Economics principle made possible by the network effect of the Internet. This is one of the most insightful articles that exists on the Internet!

Unable to compute. Too many buzzwords. My head is gonna explode!

Re:The rise of social consciousness

[antic]

The tip of the tail will change and data (rare songs or live recordings) will slip off the available net unless a couple of organisations start cataloguing every single piece of such information.

Re:The rise of social consciousness

[martin-boundary]

Why is this so?

You can thank piracy for that.

Re:The rise of social consciousness

[Ginger Unicorn]

perhaps they weren't mainstream in america.

Re:The rise of social consciousness

[Jason Levine]

So your example of ancient material being digitized is concert recordings from the past 30 years? You and I have a *COMPLETELY* different definition of ancient!

Two Babylonians walk into a bar...

[An anonymous Frank]

In other news, Dane Cook is (yet again) being accused of 'appropriating' material from other comedians!

Sometime in the distant future...

[Anachragnome]

Gravestone uncovered by excavations for the new Pan-Continental Bicycle Suspension Bridge Project...

"Here Lies Alfred E. Neuman
Mad as Hell...
Born 1954, Died 2337
Copyright, 1954"

Re:Sometime in the distant future...

[Roger W Moore]

I'd be more worried if someone copyrighted my gravestone epitaph in the year I was born. Especially when said epitaph included my year of death.

no big deal

[belmolis]

The bit about copyright on the "legal" page is just boilerplate. All it means is that the presentation of a document on this site doesn't necessarily make it public domain or grant some other license, that the owners of the original document retain whatever rights they have. The copyright laws of individual countries are only valid within that country - you only need to concern yourself with your own country's laws. There are indeed a lot of problems with excessive copyright in the world, but the copyright concerns in the post are much ado about nothing.

Re:no big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

> The copyright laws of individual countries are only valid within that country - you only need to concern yourself with your own country's laws.

Not *quite* true. Thanks to international treaties, we have to recognize foreign copyrights, though only on terms spelled out in our own laws.

And yes, they probably can get copyrights on the scans, even if the underlying material is public domain. Of course, it *should* only apply to the scan. So if you transcribe the words from whatever text yourself, you might be in the clear (depending on your own local laws).

But please remember that, thanks to the internet, even foreign laws affect us a lot more than they used to. This is especially true if, say, you have your website hosted by some British company, even though you live in America, only to find yourself subject to British libel laws (which are a lot more strict than most other places) ...

Re:no big deal

[julesh]

How is scanning of documents different from ripping music from CDs?

The arguments will be similar to those used in photography of artworks. There is a reasonably amount of judgment used in preparation of the document, choosing what kind of light to scan it with, determining the optical resolution for best reproduction, postprocessing to remove scanning artificats, etc. Although in the US, Bridgeman v Corel probably applies to render the copyrights invalid.

Re:no big deal

[Simetrical]

Not *quite* true. Thanks to international treaties, we have to recognize foreign copyrights, though only on terms spelled out in our own laws.

We have to accord foreign works the same protections as domestic works -- but that precisely means we don't have to care about the foreign laws. If something is not copyrightable in the United States, but is in France, then it can be redistributed freely in the United States even if it was created in France by French authors. Same deal if you replace "United States" and "France" with any two other members of the various copyright treaties.

(I'm sure there are exceptions to the above, but that's certainly the general principle.)

And yes, they probably can get copyrights on the scans, even if the underlying material is public domain. Of course, it *should* only apply to the scan. So if you transcribe the words from whatever text yourself, you might be in the clear (depending on your own local laws).

This probably depends on jurisdiction. In the United States, it seems unlikely that a scan would be copyrightable. See Bridgeman v. Corel : since scanning a 2D work involves purely technical considerations, not creativity, it doesn't confer copyright.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Anonymous Coward]

Racist? What the hell does "race" have to do with it?

If you want to say it's geographically biased and unnecessarily inflammatory in that respect, fine, but geographic regions aren't races and identifying disparities between the contributions to this document collection from different regions so far isn't "racist".

Here's hoping they fill in the ones that are underrepresented a bit, because there are worthwhile contributions that could be made from almost everywhere in the world (although the degree to which ancient cultures used writing or it was preserved is quite variable, and, okay, there won't be any from Antarctica. Hopefully I won't be accused of being an anti-Antarctican "racist").

Yes tech....

[Max Romantschuk]

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.

Re:Yes tech....

[drinkypoo]

If 8000-year-old documents are being withheld from the public domain there's a problem.

If 8,000 year old documents are being read it's a sign that we need to rethink hard drives.

Re:Yes tech....

[stdarg]

Don't worry, in another 8000 years societies will find our old broken down hard drives and be like "Oh it's so simple to read, we should definitely rethink our antiblue storage"

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Hierarch]

Wait, what racist overtone? Just about anyone who's actually on the lookout for older manuscripts knows that there's not a lot of middle eastern content available. It's just a fact. An unfortunate one, to be sure, for historians, but there's no racism. You're being oversensitive.

Europe, on the other hand, has a great deal of published archaeological research. For example, if I want to research medieval knives, I can find a wealth of information on English artifacts. When I tried to find references on Armenian specimens, the only thing I could find was a 3-volume Russian dig report. The situation is endlessly frustrating.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[ptudor]

The submitter hopefully says "to no great surprise" as a common way of acknowledging the occidentalizing tendencies of western academic and political traditions, of which the United Nations by virtue of its failed father the League of Nations clearly is. That whole colonization/empire thing that Europe was doing... before America got in the game with Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Philippines, and so on, led to a perspective not of understanding through observation and interaction of the inherent value anything humans do but instead produced a mindset that compared the conquering "civilized, rational" peoples to those "uncivilized barbarians" they have occupied.

But the point whenever someone brings up Edward Said is that up until a generation or two ago any study in any field that even bothered to examine cultures external to their own did so in what amounts to "Our values versus their inability to yet reach a level of sophistication that matches our values" ... consider the title of some college art classes: basic "Art History I+II" that covers egypt, greece, rome, europe after the renaissance, and america after the armory show. Anything else that happened anywhere else at any point in history doesn't matter and gets put in the category "Non-western art."

Perhaps another art example: Many are well aware of simple cave paintings in France. Impressive, yes, but works of deeper magnitude and greater age in South Africa are ignored; similarly, pre-Egyptian Saharan peoples left numerous rock-carvings that predate formal Egyptian art yet they are ignored.

Edward Said's ideas are often cited in the study of religion as it can be difficult for outsiders to truly grasp the object of study in the same way that a practitioner might. The early pioneers in the study of religion just over a century ago were the first to grasp religion could be an object of study but all too clearly display in their writings the bias of a true believer who writes about these curious savages with their peculiar practices that just don't make sense at all when compared with Protestant Christianity.

I digress.
ma'a es salaama.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[JasonB]

NOTE: The Long Tail theory of economics has been fairly well refuted since the publication of the book...for most industries, at least:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121493784638920147.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[jd]

You are correct. There's no shortage of Middle Eastern material already on the Internet ETCSL, Library of Congress, CDLI all have collections of cuneiform documents from Sumeria, Akkadia and Babylonia. It would have been child's play to collect all of that and add it to the collection.

They might well do so, in future. The standings in the league table are merely the starting point. But, yes, because of who is doing the starting, it IS no surprise that American and British researchers would concentrate on texts closer to home, particularly as there's going to be a national incentive to prioritize home-grown stuff above museum pieces. Especially if *cough* some of the museums would rather not remind people of what they have.

On the other hand, Middle Eastern countries don't have quite the same fascination with massively ancient cultures, many simply don't have the money or the resources (Iraq being a good example), and even when they DO have these, more than a few of the really early writings from the region are, ummm, elsewhere.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[iJusten]

Isn't the Long Tail theory the idea that you don't need as big percentage of population to support you as before because Internet allows for larger population to be aware of your products? There might only be one person in million who loves your music (and thus even USA would only have around 300 fans), but worldwide it means six million fans (supposing everybody had the same purchasing power) all who know of you thanks to the Internet?

I could see that this system would be largely infeasible for products with large physical dimensions, but for CD's or (even better) totally immaterial goods such as mp3's might well benefit from this sort of thinking.

Now, the question is how do you drum word-of-mouth when none of your fans have ever met each other IRL due to distances..

One set of texts in deep need of help

[F34nor]

The Sankrt texts that are written on banana leaves in India need to be oiled to prevent them breaking down. Part of the the deal for the caste system was that the Brahmans had to upkeep the texts, unfortunately now they are in a modern society and these text are being lost to decay. The yoga karuna (the instructions of astanga yoga) was "eaten by the ants" according to S.K Patabi Jois.

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[clarkkent09]

An interesting question is whether they will survive as long in the digital format as they did in banana leaf format. They might not be eaten by ants, but they can easily disappear in failing hard drives, formats that nobody can read anymore, accidental deletes or perhaps just buried under the mountains and mountains of information with little hope of ever being found again. The primary job of historians 1000 years from now might well be deciphering long forgotten file formats from dusty libraries of ancient hard drives, CDs etc.

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats why there is something like "format normalization process". A very important part of any long term archiving solution.

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[esme]

Just as in ancient times, librarians are working on these problems.

Failing hard drives are only a problem if you foolishly store data on only one drive, or on only one system. Most of the people I know store multiple copies locally, and as many copies remotely as they can. For example, the system I work with every day has data at three main sites: one in my library's server room, one in another place on campus, and a third in another part of the state. Each of these sites has redundant drives, tape backups, etc.

Formats that nobody can read is a larger problem, but mainly for access systems (as opposed to preservation systems). The images most people can use are low res, low quality and in formats that change every few years. When the format changes, you throw them away. The images that are stored long-term are in lossless, open, well-documented formats, like TIFF and PDF.

Accidental deletes can be a problem, depending on who has access to what data. Multiple sites help if there are problems. Rigorous checking of the files periodically (like checking the md5sums), helps find problems too.

There are a lot of people thinking very hard about how to make this stuff last as long as possible. Libraries typically don't have huge budgets, and digitizing and preserving materials is very costly compared to what we usually do. So there's a lot of focus on doing things right the first time, learning from other people's mistakes, etc.

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[maxume]

Given that TIFF and PDF both support JPEG compression, it is probably a bit of an over simplification to refer to them as lossless formats (they both also support lossless encodings, but saving as TIFF or PDF doesn't guarantee that the output will be lossless).

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[jeffshoaf]

perhaps just buried under the mountains and mountains of information with little hope of ever being found again.

Sort of like the little bit of info I need from the Visual Studio Help files...

Re:One set of texts in deep need of help

[Metaphorically]

I wouldn't call PDF an open format. It's well-documented, yes, but is controlled by Adobe.

Sorry if it sounds pedantic but they have made changes to the format over the years that harm preservation of data, like mechanisms for DRM and certain uses of a document through their reader.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[clarkkent09]

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"?

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[pmarini]

Simply that the Library in Alexandria burned down at some point (as we all know that "civilisation" began in Mesopotamia) so the number in Middle East would be mch bigger.
I am surprised that there are 2 items for North America dating to pre-1500, and digging a little they are works describing Columbus discovery as-it-happens!
Funny thing is that there are a total of 4 items relating to the subject of Columbus and while two of them are "located" to the place of publication, those two are "located" to NA, but with the descriptive text indicating

It most likely was produced in Basel, Switzerland[...]

and

The first edition of the letter was printed in Spanish, in Barcelona, in April 1493. Within a month, Stephan Plannck published a Latin translation in Rome.

I wouldn't call myself a librarian if I did this kind of mistakes...

Re: whether the original artists get royalties

[neonsignal]

Some of the original artists were royalties.

:-)

Excellent!

[krou]

I hear Gozer was very big in Sumeria. Hopefully there's something in these texts to suggest what he's doing in my icebox.

my share of the pay out

[pbhj]

As a descendant of all these authors I claim my cut of the monies due ...

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[windwalkr]

Surely this logic fails simply because the total amount of money (or time, or interest, or whatever you'd like to measure as a cost) is roughly constant - so for a given product to become more popular, other products must become less popular.

Sweden has allready done this

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a Swedish company that has done this in Sweden. Their user side technology is based on a really horrible Flash interface, but most public collections of rare manuscripts are available online. I talked with one of their representatives about a year ago and, if I don't remember incorrect, there were about 900 manuscripts already published at different Swedish museum sites and even more in the process of being photographed.

Sweden pillaged Northern and Middle Europe for more then a thousand year (and those parts of Europe pillaged southern Europe and their pillage ended up as our pillage), no other nation ever got much of a chance to pillage Sweden and now our museums have a lot more European manuscripts then the rest of Europe all together, from about any culture that has been writing things down in Europe. The selection is kind of random as the Swedish armies/vikings/pirates preferred books with a lot of gold and jewels (usually removed when the books reached Sweden) or parchment books that could be made into blank books to be used for military book keeping and didn't look much at the actual content. Although there where sometimes standing orders from Swedish scholars what to take and from the Thirty Years' War and forward there where always a large group of scholar expert pillagers accompanying the Swedish army.

Re:Sweden has allready done this

[YourExperiment]

There is a Swedish company that has done this in Sweden.

Almost certainly the best place for a Swedish company to do so, in my limited experience.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[martin-boundary]

If the total amount of money were constant, then interest rates would have to be zero. In reality, money is created out of thin air every day.

Sounds Like A Job For

[CyberSlammer]

Frozen Caveman Lawyer....

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[tolan-b]

Are you sure you know what race means?

race
2â â/reÉs/ S
â"noun
1. a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.
2. a population so related.
3. Anthropology.
a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.
4. a group of tribes or peoples forming an ethnic stock: the Slavic race.
5. any people united by common history, language, cultural traits, etc.: the Dutch race.
6. the human race or family; humankind: Nuclear weapons pose a threat to the race.
7. Zoology. a variety; subspecies.
8. a natural kind of living creature: the race of fishes.
9. any group, class, or kind, esp. of persons: Journalists are an interesting race.
10. the characteristic taste or flavor of wine.

See 5.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Roger W Moore]

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"?

Probably because it was written by an American who was trying to sound funny by pointing out that the Middle East had produced more documents than the entire continent of North America? By calling that number 'paltry' is implying even more of an insult to the number they produced.

The GP really ought to calm down and not try to deliberately interpret things in the worst possible light.

I was thinking about Online MMOS

[jlebrech]

I'm still waiting for Israel Online or Bible Online, 29AD Online (maccabes?). You would have prophet classes similar to druids and the opposing faction could be the romans with centurions :)

Re:I was thinking about Online MMOS

[Locke2005]

My level 50 Philistine Soldier can whip your level 80 Riddle-Speaking Prophet any time! Suck on that, Israelites!

Re:I was thinking about Online MMOS

[jlebrech]

yeah that's the idea ;)

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[elijahu]

Perhaps I just read it differently, but I think you're projecting "racism" where none was intended.

Internet usage penetration by population is still tends to be larger in countries with Euro-Centric histories. Isn't UNESCO headquarters also in Europe?

My take on the GP's statement was that it is unsurprising that European texts are more largely represented at first in terms of quantity that have been digitized. Would it be "racist" to point out the fact that the WDL was based on work already started by the [US] Library of Congress (which is probably a bit Euro-heavy).

When looked at in terms of potential for being added to the collection, I would think that the current amount of current Middle Eastern texts is indeed "paltry", and it was correctly pointed out that the percentages should change as the project grows. With the heavy financial contributions coming from the Middle East, the vast potential for ancient material from both there and from East Asia yet to be digitized, and the internet usage number (especially in E. Asia), I'd think those numbers should be very different before long.

English

[hey]

Quite a few in English...
http://www.wdl.org/en/search/gallery?ql=eng&l=English

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Hognoxious]

To work out what it's suppose[sic] to mean, you might start by observing that the part about it being no surprise is in a different sentence from the part about the ME.

Conclusion: neither A nor B.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[marco.antonio.costa]

OMGZERS, laughing so hard right now.

Well done. Please let me live now.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[G-forze]

Except you would only have 6000 fans in the entire world since the world's population is 6 billion, not 6 trillion.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[plasticsquirrel]

East Asian texts tend to be preserved in their respective languages as well, rather than in translations into English and other foreign languages. CBETA (Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association), for example, is a freely-available massive collection of over 4400 Buddhist texts in their entirety, many of which are 1500+ year old translations from Sanskrit. Some of these texts are quite massive as well, encyclopedic in scope with thousands of pages. Only a very tiny fraction of these has ever been translated into English, but they are all freely available in Chinese.

Nice collection, and with pdf download as well

[lucag]

There are already several project to scan and/or make available ancient texts [see, for example,
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ or http://www.archive.org/ , not to say of the more specialist sites like http://www.etana.org/ (for ancient near-east history) or the impressive Posner Collection at
http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/ ]
However, most of these (with the remarkable exception of gallica and cmu)
  mostly present late XIX
early XX century editions of the texts. This is good, but I feel it is definitely interesting to get also some "primary texts" online, which is what this project is doing [I don't quite like that la "Description de l'Egypte" is under 8000 BC- 499 AD, rather than 1800 AD - 1849 AD: the books are ABOUT Egyptian Antiquities, yet they were written after the Napoleonic expedition!]

I was going to complain about the need to use wget to get the books to browse off line, yet I have just seen that there actually is an option to download the texts as pdf files (alas not djvu); this is really a nice surprise; actually, I was expecting the donating libraries to try their utmost to prevent this [not that it would ever works]

I would say that this is really a worthy project.

P.S.
  There is a small editorial here as well, but I don't know if it requires subscription to be read:

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090420/full/news.2009.377.html

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[iJusten]

Yes, you are quite correct. I got my cables mixed. However, 6000 people are more than enough to support one artist/coder.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[stdarg]

basic "Art History I+II" that covers egypt, greece, rome, europe after the renaissance, and america after the armory show. Anything else that happened anywhere else at any point in history doesn't matter and gets put in the category "Non-western art."

Perhaps you're not aware, but in the US art history isn't a common class in pre-college schooling. The very brief treatment I got in high school was just part of my regular history class. As we went along, occasionally we'd learn of some new art style of the time. That's about it. So college "art history 1" is pretty much an intro class for Westerners who have never studied Western art.

Students seeking basic art history as an elective in college don't need a smattering of every culture on Earth (not to mention there wouldn't be enough time), they need something that shows the progression of *their own culture's* art, with some exposure to other art, studying how and why it's different.

Perhaps you were referring more to the name, because it's not qualified with "Western". Fair enough, but that's common in pretty much every culture and hardly indicative of some kind of orientalism or racism.

Perhaps another art example: Many are well aware of simple cave paintings in France. Impressive, yes, but works of deeper magnitude and greater age in South Africa are ignored; similarly, pre-Egyptian Saharan peoples left numerous rock-carvings that predate formal Egyptian art yet they are ignored.

Maybe this is just a difference we have in our understanding of art history. It's not literally the history of art and its techniques. That would actually be a painting class (like learning to paint in a certain style). Art history is more about understanding the impact of art on culture and society and vice versa. If you're not familiar with pre-Egyptian Saharan people, there's very little point to studying "art history" of that time except in terms of "and this influenced this later culture that you actually know about in such-and-such way." The class would also have to cover a lot of stuff about their culture for it to make any sense.

Out of curiosity, how are you judging the South African works to be "of deeper magnitude" than the French works?

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Eli Gottlieb]

On the other hand, Middle Eastern countries don't have quite the same fascination with massively ancient cultures, many simply don't have the money or the resources (Iraq being a good example), and even when they DO have these, more than a few of the really early writings from the region are, ummm, elsewhere.

Not "elsewhere". Much of the earliest material from the Middle East was either burned or buried. If you go to the Middle East you'll often find yourself walking over and around archaeological sites.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[maxume]

Get em each to give you $5 a year and you have a nice side job (though that is easily said, perhaps not so easily done).

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[maxume]

Maybe. It could be the case that there are people willing to spend $25 on music but only able to find $10 of music that they like (and then it comes down to whether you want to consider the music industry separately or not; if you do, it is easy to conclude that the $15 is being added to the market).

Gozer the Copyright Holder

[elrous0]

If Gozer isn't compensated for his copyright on those Sumerian texts, many librarians will know what it is like to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar, I can tell you!

Re:Gozer the Copyright Holder

[itlurksbeneath]

That was too funny. Mod parent hilarious! Best GhostBusters reference I've heard in a decade. My hat (if I wore one) is off to you, sir.

Re:Gozer the Copyright Holder

[billstewart]

I'd been going to do some reference about Enki putting a nam-shub on your ass, but I've been totally outclassed and pwn3d here :-)

Copyright on Ancient texts is nothing new

[Fished]

Really, copyrighting of ancient texts is nothing new. The thing is that you don't generally find an ancient text all nicely wrapped up, clear and legible in one place. Generally, you find bits and pieces of it scattered all over the place, and have to piece it together from many contradictory sources. Hence, scholars develop what are called "critical editions"--editions of ancient texts where scholars or teams of scholars have put tremendous amounts of effort into making a best effort at reconstructing the original text. Seriously, in some cases even deciphering the hand-writing can be difficult.

The best example is the New Testament, where there are literally tens of thousands of manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts dating from the first few centuries. For the most part, they agree, however there are some significant differences. (For a really egregious example, take a look at Mark 16.9ff. in a modern translation, and read the footnotes. Good place to look would be the NET, available online at bible.org). It takes a non-trivial amount of effort to sort through these thousands of manuscripts and variations and decide which one is the "original".

Another good example would be my copy of the works of Origen, a second-third century Christian scholar. Origen fell out of favor in the late third and fourth centuries and a lot of his works were lost. So, his works have not survived in one piece. My edition of Origen has three columns--Latin fragments, where he was quoted by Latin fathers, Greek fragments, where he was quoted by Greek fathers, and an English translation that tries to put it all together. Note that Origen wrote in Greek, so that the Latin fragments are translations of his words, not his original words.

Now, I personally have some serious reservations whether this sort of work is sufficiently original to merit a copyright. But, thus far, it has been concluded that it is. I suppose the real answer would be, "sometimes it is, and sometimes it ain't. But the only way to test it would be to slap the work up on your website and wait to get sued.

Re:Copyright on Ancient texts is nothing new

[lucag]

To prepare a critical edition requires a non-trivial amount of effort and work, and it makes sense that it is counted as a creative activity: it is not just to "recover what is there", but also to propose and suggest a model in which a text might fit. Actually, the original text itself may not be subject to copyright (nor anybody might claim so) but the actual compilation does. So, while copyright on the texts of Homer has definitely expired (and it cannot be claimed by, for example, the Greek government as "rightful heir"), a critical edition of the Iliad is protected.

Actually, if one just wants to read an ancient work the point might have limited relevance
(since -usually- it might be possible to find late XIX century critical editions which are "good enough"). However, for scholarly study it is of the utmost importance to determine which lectio is being followed (and why).

For a paradoxical example of "what a commentator might do", I point out the novel "Pale Fire" by Nabukov [a short description is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Fire ]
This is not supposed to happen in real life, though [even if some "comments" on sacred texts might have had even more radical effects]

I would like to add a further remark: most libraries and galleries control reproduction rights for their possessions (e.g. by forbidding to take pictures); this is something quite different from the copyright of the author.

  For example, consider this page on the National Gallery web site:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/home/copyright.htm

The National gallery has copyright FOR ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PAINTINGS [...] ON THE WEBSITE
and then they notice that
  "For some more recent works in the collection the work itself will also be in copyright. "

Hindu and Buddhist texts

[Eravnrekaree]

The number of Hindu and Buddhist texts is vast, and some of the oldest on the planet. I wonder if they will get around to digitising these.

Re:Hindu and Buddhist texts

[Locke2005]

I wonder if they will get around to digitizing these.

Who is "they"?

In other words, if you feel that digitizing these is important, what are YOU doing to move the process forward?

Initial round? Leader board??

[FlopEJoe]

For Christ's sake... does everything have to be a contest? How does this even map to one and why would you want it to be?

Re:Initial round? Leader board??

[jd]

Because museums and culture ministers like something to brag about. So long as THEY treat it as a contest, they're going to submit material. The moment they see it as educational, well, that's the department of education, which is some other guy. Not their problem any more.

Re:Initial round? Leader board??

[Locke2005]

Oh, so I suppose you never even look at your Karma score? And by the way, I'm beating you 22 Achievements to 16 Achievements! Suck on that, LOSER! ;-)

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[pjpII]

Though I agree that the summary was rather ridiculous, I think that it does point to one of the problems of archival research in the Middle East. I'm a linguist, so I don't do too much with this, but a friend was trying to find some documents about the Fatimid era in an Egyptian archive (obviously much more recent historically than the cuneiform mentioned here.)

The archive she used was a total mess. The indices were almost useless - when she could find what she was looking for, the index number didn't match any manuscripts, or the manuscript itself was in the wrong place (and therefore could not be found without a multiday search.) Even worse, another researcher was trying to find works on mathematics (riyaadiyaat in Arabic), and when looking through the index, found the letter "r" missing from an index that went "d-dh-z", when "r" comes in between "dh" and "z." (As if the index in English went "L-N-O"). When he asked, he was told to look under "h" for "hisaabaat" 'calculations', but wasn't told what would happen if he actually needed something from 'r'.

Contrast this to American and European libraries with thorough records, a consistent indexing system, and access to resources like Worldcat. Even the American open-stacks library is a bit of a rarity world-wide, and as anyone who has done research in closed-stack libraries can tell you, that makes things a lot easier.

Bingo.

[mr_matticus]

2) It's private property, they can request that you don't take photographs
It's not copyright stopping you.

They can do more than request it; they can require it.

And in other news...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Copiepresse sued the World Digital Library for infringement.

any browsers that simulate scrolls?

[peter303]

Book-format (codexes) werent really popular until A.D.

I am guessing because many Jewish temples use scroll-Torahs, that somebody has implemented a "virtual Torah".

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[vertinox]

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.

To be fair, the Crusaders really stole most of the ancient texts back in the 1200's and shipped them back to Europe. Then the mongols came in 1250 and burned everything that was left.

Canvas vs SVG

[Metaphorically]

The viewer uses Canvas, which is pretty cool, but... if you're doing scaling and panning through a document and are okay with using new technologies then I wonder why they didn't build parts of it with SVG (since that's a way to do zooming & panning pretty naturally).

I don't have much experience with canvas yet, anyone have input?

Ethnocentric as ever

[slashdotlurker]

I do not know if they count Egypt in Middle east or north Africa, but it is telling that there are little to no contributions from the ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations, both of whom make Europe and South America look like recent news.
Yup, there is nothing east of Mecca.

The Relevant Court Case here

[tcsh(1)]

The relevant court case (at least for US law, and possibly for UK law) is "Bridgeman v. Corel". Quoting WP:

Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), was a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies lack originality. Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality.

Royalties?

[zunger]

There is nothing on whether the original artists get royalties, however.

I think that many of the original artists were royalty.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Locke2005]

When I tried to find references on Armenian specimens, the only thing I could find was a 3-volume Russian dig report. The situation is endlessly frustrating. Man, you really need to get out more often. A few mojitos and some face-to-face time with a cute young blond, and you won't even remember what a medieval knife is!

Wow

[StikyPad]

Talk about old news..

Sorry, sorry.

Quality vs. Quantity

[Count_Froggy]

Do not confuse quantity with quality; also recognize the results of theft by European conquerors in the quantity of materials in European hands that originated in the Middle East and other places. I am more familiar with the Western literary tradition, so I will use as examples the multiple books of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead sea scrolls (some of which are not in the Bible), the early Christian writings, the Talmud, and lots of Islamic works - all of which are of Middle Eastern origin.

Pictures of flat items in USA = public domain

[davidwr]

In the United States, photographs of flat items do not gain any new copyright.

This means that if the original fell into the public domain thousands of years ago, any modern photograph has no protection in the United States. According to a recent court ruling, once an item has entered the public domain, it cannot later be removed from the public domain, notwithstanding any laws or treaties to the contrary.

Any country that has a problem with that is free to try to keep such photographs out of US borders. Good luck with that.

Now, composite photographs and photographs of 3-dimensional items are eligible for copyright protection, as there is some artistic work involved. "Merely" carefully unrolling a scroll and doing the very tedious work of getting it flat and ready to be photographed does not entitle anyone to copyright protection under US law.

I need mod points

[bruce_the_loon]

Someone please mod this damned bigot down to the depths of hell where he belongs?

Why not accuse the South American Indians of the same thing? Or the tribes in Paupau New Guinea?

It's always the blacks. Always trying to run them down for some reason.

75 years after Disney company goes bankrupt

[billstewart]

Or maybe it's up to 95 by now, but certainly not until then.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[ptudor]

You're pretty close with respect to the name, Western absent from Art History, I'm using that gross example to clearly demonstrate even modern institutions continue with an assumption that unless otherwise stated non-western achievements are ignored. Acknowledging that assumption is anything but racist as grandparent posited. The whole point is there is cultural relativism and to better understand another culture of study one must be semi-aware of the influence and bias of one's primary cultural foundation.

Out of curiosity, how are you judging the South African works to be "of deeper magnitude" than the French works?

I'm judging them quite subjectively, I think they're prettier. But if I need a valid argument you've got age (20-25000 BCE for some basic works versus say 10-15000 BCE for Fr/Sp). I can't really cite images in my head but there are some later works contemporary with Egypt that are amazing in the use of color, shading, and representation of humans.

Re: Ane the fall of Long Tail Theory

[martin-boundary]

Of course money is created through debt, but I wouldn't call debt money as such. Debt is slavery, even if it is entered into voluntarily and is only part time 9-5 to pay off the mortgage.

If the money supply is constant, interest rates simply have to be zero on average (unless people don't expect to be honouring them, which is unsustainable pretty quickly, or you're thinking of some bartering system). You're right that still allows them to be nonzero locally, but since they would have to be negative in some parts to compensate, the people who "earned" negative interest would have to be forced to do so.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Hierarch]

*cough* Actually, the girl's a cute young red-head who happens to like sharp, shiny objects. I make knives; she thinks bladesmiths are sexy. I'm definitely not going to argue.

Re:Was the racist overtone intended???

[Locke2005]

Researching ancient metallurgy in an attempt to reconstruct forgotten technology and techniques actually is a worthwhile endeavor, but you shouldn't let the absence of clear information get to you. Also, you should move into sword making, as I'm sure that red-head would tell you, size really does matter! (Although I'm still unclear why in The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston didn't scream at Kevin Costner, "You bastard! You just cut my $200 scarf in half!" Perhaps dropping a silk scarf onto a samurai sword and having it slice cleanly in half is seen as a metaphor for something else.)