Project:The copyright status of Wittgenstein’s works: Difference between revisions

This, as well as the general nature of the public domain itself, is sometimes the subject of misunderstandings because publishers tend to print the copyright symbol “©” or another copyright notice on all books they produce, regardless of the copyright status of the text, possibly hoping to protect the typesetting and layout (which, however, are usually below the {{plainlink|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality threshold of originality]}})<ref>It may be worth noting, incidentally, that some countries do have “typographical copyrigh”, i.e., laws that specifically protect typesetting and layout. The UK is one such country: see Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 15.</ref> or perhaps simply trying to discourage photocopying even public domain texts. As mentioned above ([[#Introduction. The purpose of copyright and the public domain|§ Introduction. The purpose of copyright and the public domain]]), however, adding copyright symbols where they do not belong should be regarded as illegal.

However, Ms-172, Ms-173, and Ms-176, in which Wittgenstein’s remarks on colour are contained and from which the 1977 edition was compiled, had already been published, albeit in a rather uncommon kind of edition. In 1967, looking to make the ''Nachlass'' available to scholars in its “raw” form, Cornell University microfilmed the corpus; the print version of the microfilms, i.e., a facsimile edition of (almost) the entire ''Nachlass'', was published by Cornell itself in 1968.<ref>''The Wittgenstein Papers'', Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca (NY) 1968. For more information, see A. Pichler, “{{plainlink|[https://www.inst.at/trans/10Nr/pichler10.htm Encoding Wittgenstein. Some Remarks on Wittgenstein’s ''Nachlass'', the ''Bergen Electronic Edition'', and future electronic publishing and networking]}}”, in ''Trans. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften'', no. 10, January 2022, retrieved 30 July 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220730162159/https://www.inst.at/trans/10Nr/pichler10.htm archived URL]}}).</ref> Even though it is a rather untypical book and even though, in particular, it lacks an imprint, the Cornell edition seems to meet the American legal definition of “publication”<ref>“‘Publication’ is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.” Title 17 of the United States Code (17 U. S. C.) §101. By this definition, there is no minimum number of copies to be attained for the distribution to count as a publication, nor there is the need for a formal registration or commercialisation. As Peter Hirtle writes, however, the following should be noted: “‘Publication’ was not explicitly defined in the Copyright Law before 1976, but the 1909 Act indirectly indicated that publication was when copies of the first authorized edition were placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed by the proprietor of the copyright or under his authority.” See ''{{plainlink|1=[https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain Copyright Term and the Public Domain]}}'', Cornell University Library, retrieved 30 July 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220711133814/https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain archived URL]}}). The 1909 indication seems to stress commercialisation more than Title 17 does; at any rate, it seems that the Cornell edition was indeed sold to research institutes worldwide: see A. Pichler, “{{plainlink|[https://www.inst.at/trans/10Nr/pichler10.htm Encoding Wittgenstein. Some Remarks on Wittgenstein’s ''Nachlass'', the ''Bergen Electronic Edition'', and future electronic publishing and networking”]}}, in ''Trans. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften'', no. 10, January 2022, retrieved 30 July 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220730162159/https://www.inst.at/trans/10Nr/pichler10.htm archived URL]}}).</ref> and the ''Bemerkungen über die Farben'', which were part of this publication,<ref>M. Biggs, A. Pichler, “Wittgenstein: Two Source Catalogues and a Bibliography. Catalogues of the Published Texts and of the Published Diagrams, each Related to its Sources”, in ''Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen'', no. 7, 1993.</ref> must therefore be considered to have the US as their country of origin. Possibly because of being published by a university library for mere research purposes, however, this edition did not bear a copyright notice. Works first published in the US between 1927 and 1977 without a copyright notice are in the public domain there, because at the time this formality was a necessary condition for the work to be copyrighted at all.<ref name="hirtle-chart" /> Thus, the ''Bemerkungen über die Farben'' are in the public domain in their country of origin. They are also in the public domain in Italy, because the copyright term for literary works there is 70 years P.M.A. and the author died before 1952.