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<div style="border: 1px solid silver; border-radius: 3px; padding: 20px;">''This essay in a nutshell: Most of Wittgenstein’s works we are used to referring to by a book title were published posthumously, in some cases with little intervention by his literary executors, in some other cases after undergoing extensive editing. This poses a copyright problem, because the editor’s work might add a further “layer” of intellectual property protection. The Ludwig Wittgenstein Project is determined to treat copyright issues with the greatest care and will only publish texts the copyright status of which is beyond a reasonable doubt. This article should be considered a Ludwig Wittgenstein Project policy statement as of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}.''</div>
<div style="border: 1px solid silver; border-radius: 3px; padding: 20px;">''This essay in a nutshell: Most of Wittgenstein’s works we are used to referring to by a book title were published posthumously, in some cases with little intervention by his literary executors, in some other cases after undergoing extensive editing. This poses a copyright problem, because the editor’s work might add a further “layer” of intellectual property protection. The Ludwig Wittgenstein Project is determined to treat copyright issues with the greatest care and will only publish texts that are in the public domain beyond a reasonable doubt. This article should be considered a Ludwig Wittgenstein Project policy statement as of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}.''</div>




=== Introduction. The copyright status of Wittgenstein’s ''Nachlass'' ===
=== Introduction. The copyright status of Wittgenstein’s ''Nachlass'' ===


Wittgenstein wrote a lot, but published little. A very short, and hilarious, review of Peter Coffey’s ''The Science of Logic''. The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. A dictionary, or rather a spelling book, for German-speaking schoolchildren. An academic article by the title ''Some Remarks on Logical Form''. A letter to the editor of ''Mind''.
Wittgenstein wrote a lot but published little. A very short, and hilarious, review of Peter Coffey’s ''The Science of Logic''. The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. A dictionary, or rather a spelling book, for German-speaking schoolchildren. An academic article by the title ''Some Remarks on Logical Form''. A letter to the editor of ''Mind''.


Almost everything we now have in book form—in such a way that we can step into a shop and say “I’m looking for a copy of…”—was published posthumously. After Wittgenstein died in 1951, his appointed literary executors, G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, were left with the task of sorting and grouping his handwritten notes and typescripts in order to publish them.<ref>For more details, see von Wright, G.H. (1969). "The Wittgenstein Papers". ''Philosophical Review''. 78 (4): 483–503.</ref>
Almost everything we now have in book form—in such a way that we can step into a shop and say “I’m looking for a copy of…”—was published posthumously. After Wittgenstein died in 1951, his appointed literary executors, G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, were left with the task of sorting and grouping his handwritten notes and typescripts in order to publish them.<ref>For more details, see von Wright, G.H. (1969). "The Wittgenstein Papers". ''Philosophical Review''. 78 (4): 483–503.</ref>
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Now, the ''Nachlass'' itself—the collection of Wittgenstein’s manuscript material, the “raw” Wittgenstein—has been available online since the 2010s, almost in its entirety, both in a fac-simile edition and in an XML/HTML transcription. This was made possible by the generosity of the copyright holders of the originals, The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the work of the Wittgenstein Archives Bergen. Much of the digitised content has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).<ref>For more information, see the website of the <span class="plainlinks">[http://wab.uib.no/ Wittgenstein Archives Bergen]</span> and <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/ WittgensteinSource]</span>.</ref>
Now, the ''Nachlass'' itself—the collection of Wittgenstein’s manuscript material, the “raw” Wittgenstein—has been available online since the 2010s, almost in its entirety, both in a fac-simile edition and in an XML/HTML transcription. This was made possible by the generosity of the copyright holders of the originals, The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the work of the Wittgenstein Archives Bergen. Much of the digitised content has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).<ref>For more information, see the website of the <span class="plainlinks">[http://wab.uib.no/ Wittgenstein Archives Bergen]</span> and <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/ WittgensteinSource]</span>.</ref>


The intellectual property rights on the ''Nachlass'' will expire, in those countries where the copyright term is the life of the author plus 70 years, on 1 January 2022. Everything in Wittgenstein’s own writing will then be in the public domain in such countries, the list of which includes Austria (where Wittgenstein was born), the United Kingdom (where Wittgenstein became a naturalised citizen), and Italy (where the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project is based and where its servers are located).
The intellectual property rights on the ''Nachlass'' will expire in those countries where the copyright term is the life of the author plus 70 years on 1 January 2022. Everything in Wittgenstein’s own writing will then be in the public domain in such countries, the list of which includes Austria (where Wittgenstein was born), the United Kingdom (where Wittgenstein became a naturalised citizen), and Italy (where the Ludwig Wittgenstein Project is based and where its servers are located).


(Of course, nothing that Wittgenstein wrote will be in the public domain in those countries, like Mexico, where the copyright term is longer than 70 years. And not everything that Wittgenstein wrote will be in the public domain in those countries, like the United States of America, where the date of an author’s death is not the only criterion for determining the copyright status of their works. This, however, is not the subject of this essay.)
(Of course, nothing that Wittgenstein wrote will be in the public domain in those countries, like Mexico, where the copyright term is longer than 70 years. And not everything that Wittgenstein wrote will be in the public domain in those countries, like the United States of America, where the date of an author’s death is not the only criterion for determining the copyright status of their works. This, however, is not the subject of this essay.)
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