Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

This should really go onto cc-community. Are you subscribed to that list?

On Monday, March 21, 2005, at 02:50AM, drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com> wrote:

>Also, people slap a copyright page on the front of a book without being 
>specific as to what inside is copyright nad what isn't. (Or what can be 
>pulled out without violating the copyright.)

They don't have to. They get copyright on anything they write by default. 
Indeed they don't even have to put the notice on.

>For instance, and I think I posted this before, I bought "The Folksong Fake 
>Book" and while it does not seem to have the standard type copyright notice 
>anywhere that I can see on the first several pages, it does say this on the 
>first inside page that is not the cover - "For all works contained herein: 
>Unauthorized copying, arranging, adapting, recording, or public performance 
>is an infringement of copyright. Infringers are liable under the law."

This ignores fair use/fair dealing, although I suppose that authorisation is 
given by the law in this case.

>Then on page 355 it has a song titled "Nassau Bound" which it lists as a Sea 
>Chantey from the Bahamas It is a song we learned in school as children. We 
>learned it, and you would probably know it, under the title "Sloop John B."

Ahhhhh. So this is public domain work. There seem to be four ways of getting 
copyright on a public domain work that are possibly relevent to this :

1. Make the work part of a collective work and claim copyright on the 
collective work. So if I collect two hundred folk songs into a single book, I 
can claim copyright on the entire book.
2. Alter or arrange the work in a sufficiently different way in order to 
create a derivative work and claim copyright on that.
3. For a written work, claim copyright on the typographic arrangement used to 
present the work (not the text itself).
4. For a a song, arrange it in a new way (I think).

Dover Books tend to do 1. They'll collect hundreds of images and claim 
copyright on the collection. They also add an introductory essay to a 
facsimile of a complete public domain copyright work and place the copyright 
at the start of the book.

>The song itself has this copyright notice:
>
>Copyright (C) 2000 by Hal Leonard Corporation - where (C) is actually the 
>copyright symbol.
>
>Now, how in the world can a presumably american company have obtained a 
>copyright on a traditional song of my country? In the year 2000 no less.

IANAL but if they haven't changed anything they can't (c) the individual 
songs. They *may* copyright the typographic arrangement of the song.

So you couldn't photocopy the page (typography) but you could type out the 
words and print that (text).

>They claim a similar copyright on Greensleaves which they list as 16th 
>Century 
>English and yet they obtained a copyright on this song in 2000?
>
>Same with Molly Malone which we also learned as children and they list as 
>Irish.
>
>Same with Old MacDonald Had A Farm which is listed as an American Folksong.
>
>I am sure you get the picture. What exactly are they claiming to have a 
>copyright in? It can't be the words and music can it? I mean, that would 
>mean 
>when children sing Old MacDonald in a public place they are making a 
>violating public performance.

TO my mind it has to be the typography.

IIRC it's an offense in the US to claim copyright on something you don't have 
copyright on. I'd love to see such a case brought.

Apparently "Happy Birthday To You" *is* under copyright. Think of all those 
home videos pirating that copyrighted work...

- Rob.