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Thus, the aim of copyright is, among other things, to make creativity viable on the market by giving authors monopoly over the distribution of the copies of their works. By being the only authorised sellers of those works, albeit often with the intermediation of a publisher, or a label, etc., authors may be able to secure an income. | Thus, the aim of copyright is, among other things, to make creativity viable on the market by giving authors monopoly over the distribution of the copies of their works. By being the only authorised sellers of those works, albeit often with the intermediation of a publisher, or a label, etc., authors may be able to secure an income. | ||
The difference between intellectual property and the property of material goods, however, has implications that reach beyond the relative ease of breaching the former compared to breaching the latter. The very power of culture consists, in fact, in the possibility for words, pictures, music, etc. to be reproduced with relatively little effort and, most importantly, ''without thereby consuming, diminishing, or getting any closer to the depletion of the “source”''. As the saying – often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw – goes: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas”. The benefit that society as a whole gains from the exchange and the transmission of ideas has long been clear. Therefore, a limitation always accompanies the affirmation of the author’s rights over their works: eventually, copyright expires, and the works become public property. Unlike a house, then, which can be handed over from parents to children by way of inheritance for, in principle, endless generations, the intellectual property of a creative work expires two to three generations after the author’s death, depending on the country or territory. | The difference between intellectual property and the property of material goods, however, has implications that reach beyond the relative ease of breaching the former compared to breaching the latter. The very power of culture consists, in fact, in the possibility for words, pictures, music, etc. to be reproduced with relatively little effort and, most importantly, ''without thereby consuming, diminishing, or getting any closer to the depletion of the “source”''. As the saying – often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw – goes: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas”. The benefit that society as a whole gains from the exchange and the transmission of ideas has long been clear. Therefore, a limitation always accompanies the affirmation of the author’s rights over their works: eventually, copyright expires, and the works become public property. Unlike the property a house, then, which can be handed over from parents to children by way of inheritance for, in principle, endless generations, the intellectual property of a creative work expires two to three generations after the author’s death, depending on the country or territory. | ||
The rationale for the finite duration of the copyright term is related precisely to the concept, firstly, that the circulation of ideas through the replication of works of art (and fiction, and nonfiction…) is in the interest of the human community, and not only in the interest of the author and their heirs; and, secondly, that if such circulation is free not only in the sense of freedom, but also in that of gratuity, the interest of the human spirit will be much better served. | The rationale for the finite duration of the copyright term is related precisely to the concept, firstly, that the circulation of ideas through the replication of works of art (and fiction, and nonfiction…) is in the interest of the human community, and not only in the interest of the author and their heirs; and, secondly, that if such circulation is free not only in the sense of freedom, but also in that of gratuity, the interest of the human spirit will be much better served. | ||
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The logic of copyright and of its term being limited by design, thus, is as follows. Authors should be able to exploit their works financially (in order perhaps, depending on one’s broader moral view, to reward their genius, but also to enable them to keep doing what they do while letting others benefit from their creativity as well). Sooner or later, however, the circulation of such works should stop being subject to the author’s consent or their family’s (in order for the public to fully enjoy the works without limitations of sorts, and especially without having to pay to do so). | The logic of copyright and of its term being limited by design, thus, is as follows. Authors should be able to exploit their works financially (in order perhaps, depending on one’s broader moral view, to reward their genius, but also to enable them to keep doing what they do while letting others benefit from their creativity as well). Sooner or later, however, the circulation of such works should stop being subject to the author’s consent or their family’s (in order for the public to fully enjoy the works without limitations of sorts, and especially without having to pay to do so). | ||
In other words, the “spirit” of copyright | In other words, the “spirit” of copyright laws is that: | ||
* upon the birth of a piece of creative work, the right to copy it, distribute the copies, sell them, modify the original and disseminate the modified version (a translation, a remix, etc.) belongs exclusively to the author – all rights are reserved; | * upon the birth of a piece of creative work, the right to copy it, distribute the copies, sell them, modify the original and disseminate the modified version (a translation, a remix, etc.) belongs exclusively to the author – all rights are reserved; | ||
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The public domain is meant to be a guarantee that culture is not forever subject to the monetary laws of buying and selling. In spite of local differences in copyright legislation, it is remarkable that in every last country on Earth the copyright term is finite, and ''all'' jurisdictions share the moral understanding that it is right for the public to eventually be free to do anything they want with a piece of writing, of music, of visual art, etc. | The public domain is meant to be a guarantee that culture is not forever subject to the monetary laws of buying and selling. In spite of local differences in copyright legislation, it is remarkable that in every last country on Earth the copyright term is finite, and ''all'' jurisdictions share the moral understanding that it is right for the public to eventually be free to do anything they want with a piece of writing, of music, of visual art, etc. | ||
The public domain is as important a feature of intellectual property laws as copyright. Attempts at restricting the public’s right to access and use works that are in the public domain should be considered as illegal as accessing and using copyrighted material without permission. Of course, it is much more common for publishers to sue for copyright infringement than for individuals or non-for-profits to sue for what we could call “public domain infringement”. This is due to an obvious imbalance in power | The public domain is as important a feature of intellectual property laws as copyright. Attempts at restricting the public’s right to access and use works that are in the public domain should be considered as illegal as accessing and using copyrighted material without permission. Of course, it is much more common for publishers to sue for copyright infringement than for individuals or non-for-profits to sue for what we could call “public domain infringement”. This is due to an obvious imbalance in power – that is, financial resources, knowledge, and organisation – but the argument is not any less urgent for this reason.<ref>The very concept of “public domain infringement”, obviously formed in analogy with “copyright infringement”, was coined by the author of this essay. Merely as a proof that the broad moral framework of our culture warrants the analogy, consider articles 27 (“Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”) and 19 (“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”) of the {{plainlink|[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights]}}.</ref> | ||
== A very short history of the rights on Wittgenstein’s writings == | == A very short history of the rights on Wittgenstein’s writings == | ||
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In the case of a translation of a book the author of which is still alive, for example, the author is the original text’s copyright holder and may licence another party, typically a publisher, to sell a translation; the translator will be the translation’s copyright holder and may in turn licence another party, again the publisher, to sell the translation. The publisher of the translation will need to have agreements with, and usually pay, both the author and the translator. | In the case of a translation of a book the author of which is still alive, for example, the author is the original text’s copyright holder and may licence another party, typically a publisher, to sell a translation; the translator will be the translation’s copyright holder and may in turn licence another party, again the publisher, to sell the translation. The publisher of the translation will need to have agreements with, and usually pay, both the author and the translator. | ||
When copyright on the original text expires, it becomes possible for anyone to translate it and publish the translation without having to ask for permission. However, extant translations are still copyrighted until ''their'' copyright expires. For example, even though Wittgenstein’s ''Tractatus'' is now in the public domain | When copyright on the original text expires, it becomes possible for anyone to translate it and publish the translation without having to ask for permission. However, extant translations are still copyrighted until ''their'' copyright expires. For example, even though Wittgenstein’s ''Tractatus'' is now in the public domain in countries with a 70 years P.M.A. copyright term, the Pears-McGuinness translation will be copyrighted in those countries until the 70 years P.M.A. term expires for both Pears and McGuinness, that is, 1 January 2090, for Pears passed before McGuinness and McGuinness passed in 2019. On the other hand, since F.P. Ramsey died at a very young age, many years before Wittgenstein himself, his translation entered (or will enter) the public domain in any given country when the original did (or will). | ||
Since, most often, the translator belongs to a younger generation than the author, “canonical” translations usually enter the public domain significantly later than the corresponding originals. | Since, most often, the translator belongs to a younger generation than the author, “canonical” translations usually enter the public domain significantly later than the corresponding originals. | ||
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For example, the photograph of a three-dimensional object is universally considered a creative work, because of the choices that need to be made in terms of angle, framing, composition, lighting, focus, focal length, shutter speed, aperture, etc. Even though the Nike of Samothrace is clearly in the public domain, each of the photographs of it that are created daily are protected by copyright. | For example, the photograph of a three-dimensional object is universally considered a creative work, because of the choices that need to be made in terms of angle, framing, composition, lighting, focus, focal length, shutter speed, aperture, etc. Even though the Nike of Samothrace is clearly in the public domain, each of the photographs of it that are created daily are protected by copyright. | ||
On the other hand, photocopies and scans are universally considered to be purely mechanical reproductions of two-dimensional objects, and therefore do not entail the formation of a new layer of copyright. This is also true for faithful, frontal photographs of paintings or other two-dimensional works of art. The example here will be much more relevant: since the original handwritten and typewritten notes taken or dictated by Wittgenstein are now in the public domain in | On the other hand, photocopies and scans are universally considered to be purely mechanical reproductions of two-dimensional objects, and therefore do not entail the formation of a new layer of copyright. This is also true for faithful, frontal photographs of paintings or other two-dimensional works of art. The example here will be much more relevant: since the original handwritten and typewritten notes taken or dictated by Wittgenstein are now in the public domain in most countries, the scans that are available on {{plainlink|[http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/ Wittgenstein Source]}} are now in the public domain too. No matter how expensive or time-consuming scanning thousands of pages was, such effort was not of a creative nature, and copyright laws do not cover its output.<ref>For further details on this subject, see Thomas Margoni, ''{{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20190512145439/http://outofcopyright.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/digitisation_cultural_heritage-thomas-margoni.pdf The digitisation of cultural heritage: originality, derivative works and (non) original photographs]}}'', Institute for Information Law (IViR), Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam, p. 51.</ref> | ||
A verbatim transcription configures the same scenario. As no creativity is involved, for example, an HTML document that reproduces the text and the formatting of one of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts is not of itself eligible for copyright protection and is in the public domain if the original is. In the context of Wittgenstein studies, the case of the {{plainlink|[http://wab.uib.no/index.page Wittgenstein Archives Bergen]}}’s <span class="plainlinks">[http://wab.uib.no/transform/wab.php?modus=opsjoner transcriptions of the ''Nachlass'']</span> must be discussed explicitly. Under the direction of Profs Claus Huitfeldt and Alois Pichler and over more than 30 years, the WAB has rendered the scholarly community an invaluable service by providing excellent, extremely rich transcriptions of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts that, at the moment of this writing, can be accessed online at no cost. Beside the texts, the XML files created by the WAB include all the information which the originals themselves contain – emphases, strikeouts, alternatives, sidenotes, page breaks, and more – and allow the user to dynamically select which information set should be displayed. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this resource, and the generosity behind the decision – by Trinity and the WAB – to make it available on the internet for free should be duly stressed. The effort that went into making and proofreading the transcriptions should also be recognised. However, this effort cannot count as a creative one. A transcription, even or rather ''especially'' a rich transcription that reproduces all the features of a handwritten or typewritten document, is a 1-to-1 substitution of some visual feature with a corresponding XML tag. If multiple people were to transcribe the same text, the output would have to be absolutely identical: this is enough reason to consider the activity as a non-creative activity. The same argument, however, can perhaps be expressed in an even more striking way: once a handwritten or typewritten original is transcribed into a rich text document the markup of which incorporates all the information that was present in the original itself, this can (and must, for this is the whole point of the procedure) then be rendered as a document, for example a web page, that visually reproduces all the features of the original; in other words, the visual features of the text (emphases, additions, deletions, etc.) can be transformed into markup and markup can be transformed back into visual features; to put it in a very Wittgensteinian way,<ref>See [[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (English)#4.04|''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'', 4.04]].</ref> the original and the transcription have the same “mathematical multiplicity”, they are in a strong sense interchangeable, and the latter does not add anything creative to the former, no matter how painstakingly long and accurate the procedure is. (Within the frame of this argument, it also becomes even clearer why translations, on the other hand, are and should be considered creative works: there is no way a translation can be “translated back” into the original text: if one tried to reconstruct the German text of the ''Tractatus'' by translating an English version back into German, the result would obviously be very different than the actual original.)<ref>Of course, the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project has no intention to duplicate the WAB’s excellent work and even less to overshadow it. The scope of our project is, and is meant to be, complementary to theirs, in that we aim at making edited ''Leseausgaben'' available as opposed to “raw” source materials and our target audience is the general public as opposed to the academics. Se the following section, [[#Contracts, constraints unrelated to intellectual property, and politeness|§ Contracts, constraints unrelated to intellectual property, and politeness]], for a brief comment on “politeness” in this context.</ref> | A verbatim transcription configures the same scenario. As no creativity is involved, for example, an HTML document that reproduces the text and the formatting of one of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts is not of itself eligible for copyright protection and is in the public domain if the original is. In the context of Wittgenstein studies, the case of the {{plainlink|[http://wab.uib.no/index.page Wittgenstein Archives Bergen]}}’s <span class="plainlinks">[http://wab.uib.no/transform/wab.php?modus=opsjoner transcriptions of the ''Nachlass'']</span> must be discussed explicitly. Under the direction of Profs Claus Huitfeldt and Alois Pichler and over more than 30 years, the WAB has rendered the scholarly community an invaluable service by providing excellent, extremely rich transcriptions of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts that, at the moment of this writing, can be accessed online at no cost. Beside the texts, the XML files created by the WAB include all the information which the originals themselves contain – emphases, strikeouts, alternatives, sidenotes, page breaks, and more – and allow the user to dynamically select which information set should be displayed. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this resource, and the generosity behind the decision – by Trinity and the WAB – to make it available on the internet for free should be duly stressed. The effort that went into making and proofreading the transcriptions should also be recognised. However, this effort cannot count as a creative one. A transcription, even or rather ''especially'' a rich transcription that reproduces all the features of a handwritten or typewritten document, is a 1-to-1 substitution of some visual feature with a corresponding XML tag. If multiple people were to transcribe the same text, the output would have to be absolutely identical: this is enough reason to consider the activity as a non-creative activity. The same argument, however, can perhaps be expressed in an even more striking way: once a handwritten or typewritten original is transcribed into a rich text document the markup of which incorporates all the information that was present in the original itself, this can (and must, for this is the whole point of the procedure) then be rendered as a document, for example a web page, that visually reproduces all the features of the original; in other words, the visual features of the text (emphases, additions, deletions, etc.) can be transformed into markup and markup can be transformed back into visual features; to put it in a very Wittgensteinian way,<ref>See [[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (English)#4.04|''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'', 4.04]].</ref> the original and the transcription have the same “mathematical multiplicity”, they are in a strong sense interchangeable, and the latter does not add anything creative to the former, no matter how painstakingly long and accurate the procedure is. (Within the frame of this argument, it also becomes even clearer why translations, on the other hand, are and should be considered creative works: there is no way a translation can be “translated back” into the original text: if one tried to reconstruct the German text of the ''Tractatus'' by translating an English version back into German, the result would obviously be very different than the actual original.)<ref>Of course, the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project has no intention to duplicate the WAB’s excellent work and even less to overshadow it. The scope of our project is, and is meant to be, complementary to theirs, in that we aim at making edited ''Leseausgaben'' available as opposed to “raw” source materials and our target audience is the general public as opposed to the academics. Se the following section, [[#Contracts, constraints unrelated to intellectual property, and politeness|§ Contracts, constraints unrelated to intellectual property, and politeness]], for a brief comment on “politeness” in this context.</ref> |