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Project:The copyright status of Wittgenstein’s works: Difference between revisions
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What was said above remains valid for the WAB transcriptions: insofar as creating a digital edition of a handwritten or typewritten text consists of a 1-to-1 substitution of some visual feature with the corresponding character or XML tag, the output is to be considered a faithtul reproduction of the original material and cannot, in and of itself, be copyrighted. However, two points must be stressed that were not relevant in the case we discussed previously, the example of the French translation of the ''Tractatus'', but are important here. | What was said above remains valid for the WAB transcriptions: insofar as creating a digital edition of a handwritten or typewritten text consists of a 1-to-1 substitution of some visual feature with the corresponding character or XML tag, the output is to be considered a faithtul reproduction of the original material and cannot, in and of itself, be copyrighted. However, two points must be stressed that were not relevant in the case we discussed previously, the example of the French translation of the ''Tractatus'', but are important here. | ||
The first is that, even though the WAB’s transcriptions are produced in accordance with the strict rules based on the {{plainlink|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Encoding_Initiative TEI Guidelines]}}, in many cases the transcriber is forced to propose what we may call an interpretation. This is not only because, unlike printed texts, Wittgenstein’s handwritten texts maybe difficult to decipher on the grounds of the quality of the author’s penmanship; it is also and perhaps most importantly because very often more than one way of encoding the text is consistent with the rules.<ref>In A. Pichler, “{{plainlink|[http://wab.uib.no/alois/pichler-kirchb95a.pdf Transcriptions, Texts and Interpretation]}}”, in Kjell S. Johannessen and Tore Nordenstam (eds.), ''Culture and Value. Beiträge des 18. Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposiums. 13.-20. August 1995 Kirchberg am Wechsel'', ALWG, 1995, p. 695, retrieved 20 November 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://wab.uib.no/alois/pichler-kirchb95a.pdf archived URL]}}, Alois Pichler argues that “transcription work is essentially selective and interpretational in nature”. While this may be too bold a wording and a claim so strong as to undermine the authority of the WAB’s transcriptions, in the same paper (pp. 693–694) he lists several good reasons why the WAB’s transcription cannot count as literatim transcriptions.</ref> Where there is room for this kind of uncertainty and an interpretation is needed to make up for the uncertainty, there is room for originality too. | The first is that, even though the WAB’s transcriptions are produced in accordance with the strict rules based on the {{plainlink|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Encoding_Initiative TEI Guidelines]}}, in many cases the transcriber is forced to propose what we may call an interpretation. This is not only because, unlike printed texts, Wittgenstein’s handwritten texts maybe difficult to decipher on the grounds of the quality of the author’s penmanship; it is also and perhaps most importantly because very often more than one way of encoding the text is consistent with the rules.<ref>In A. Pichler, “{{plainlink|[http://wab.uib.no/alois/pichler-kirchb95a.pdf Transcriptions, Texts and Interpretation]}}”, in Kjell S. Johannessen and Tore Nordenstam (eds.), ''Culture and Value. Beiträge des 18. Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposiums. 13.-20. August 1995 Kirchberg am Wechsel'', ALWG, 1995, p. 695, retrieved 20 November 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://wab.uib.no/alois/pichler-kirchb95a.pdf archived URL]}}), Alois Pichler argues that “transcription work is essentially selective and interpretational in nature”. While this may be too bold a wording and a claim so strong as to undermine the authority of the WAB’s transcriptions, in the same paper (pp. 693–694) he lists several good reasons why the WAB’s transcription cannot count as literatim transcriptions.</ref> Where there is room for this kind of uncertainty and an interpretation is needed to make up for the uncertainty, there is room for originality too. | ||
The second is that the WAB’s transcriptions also make Wittgenstein’s implicit references to people and books explicit:<ref>See A. Pichler, ''Transcriptions, Texts and Interpretation'', p. 695.</ref> embedded in the XML files are also the full names of people Wittgenstein only mentions by surname or talks about without naming them at all; information about the books Wittgenstein discusses or quotes from without citing the full title; etc.; here, again, the transcriber can then be said to be responsible for an interpretation, and, again, where there is a margin for interpretation (when the multiplicity of the text is not exactly the multiplicity that is needed for the transcription to be unequivocal), there is room for originality too. | The second is that the WAB’s transcriptions also make Wittgenstein’s implicit references to people and books explicit:<ref>See A. Pichler, ''Transcriptions, Texts and Interpretation'', p. 695.</ref> embedded in the XML files are also the full names of people Wittgenstein only mentions by surname or talks about without naming them at all; information about the books Wittgenstein discusses or quotes from without citing the full title; etc.; here, again, the transcriber can then be said to be responsible for an interpretation, and, again, where there is a margin for interpretation (when the multiplicity of the text is not exactly the multiplicity that is needed for the transcription to be unequivocal), there is room for originality too. | ||