two copyright questions

Factual Questions
1

Said questions being:

!. While wandering around the internet, I noticed this little message at the bottom of the page (I can’t for the life of me remember where) : C Infopop Corporation (formerly Madrona Park, Inc.), 1998-2000. My question is, why is it necessary to copyright multiple dates? Is it representative of work that has been modified over time, thus comprising material spanning those years, or for some other reason?

@. the other question is, is it possible for me to publish some work that is in the public domain (due to copyright expiration) with some particular variation, then demand satisfaction when people use some other part of it, or is any clearly derivative work uncopyrightable? Couple of examples, as ideas :

Say I publish the King James Version of the Bible. Would I have any legal claims on …

a set of annotations ?(i.e. study bible, I’m guessing yes on this one.)

clarifications of items that inform doctrine based on my church, or on scholarly evidence since it was written?

a modern orthography? (like a revised KJV)

another example :

There was a song in the 60’s (or maybe 50’s) that had a title something like “Lover’s Symphony”, with a melody from Bach (I think from the Anna Magdelena notebooks, if that helps). Was that song copyrightable as a whole, or just the lyrics written for it? What infringement would recording it mean?

Just curious,

panama jack

Come and tell me who and what you are.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
-Kahlil Gibran

2

You have a lot more than two questions.

However, my semi-educated opinions

  1. Multiple dates indicate that there were materials on the web page that you were viewing that were created in different years. Hence they all have different copyright dates. The span just indicates which years are covered.

  2. As for public domain works, the Copyright Office answers your question in part this way in their Basic Information pamphlet under what is NOT copyrightable

As to the song you referenced, remember that songs usually have two different copyrights. One is for the song itself. This could be just the music or just the lyrics or (usually) both.
The other copyright is for a recording of the music. Anybody can go and record a piece of public domain music (like a Bach cantata) and get a copyright on that recording of that performance. What you get copyright protection for is for the recording only. You can go after someone who makes a bootleg tape of your playing of a Bach cantata. However, you have no rights to Bach’s music itself and anyone else can make a recording of it.

You can read a lot about all this stuff on the Copyright Office’s website.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

3

My question is, why is it necessary to copyright multiple dates? Is it representative of work that has been modified over time, thus comprising material spanning those years, or for some other reason?

They update the copyrights to be ‘inclusive’, spanning those years.
Usually for changes in a collection,(of songs, that were later updated to include newer versions), under the same ‘collection’ as filed.

The some other reason, is to make people think the book is new, even though all that has been done, is update the copyright notice, and sell it to you, as freshly written.
This kind of fraud is seen most often in religious books, sold door to door.
Used to be plenty of these outfits crusin’ round, and one hallmark of their fraud, was when you looked at the book they was sellin’, and asked how old it was, they just showed you the fresh printed, and newly updated ‘isbn’ page, showin’ you just how fresh the book was, even if the pictures and text all looked right outa’ 1929.

Looked sumpthin’ like this,

Copyright, ‘29,‘39’49’59’69’79’89’, and a buncha’ years that ain’t even happened yet.

Remember I said, door to door, not legit book selling. Those can have many copyright updates, but generally don’t. They have one copyright date, but many printings.

I’ll probably start to digress, so I’ll cut it here.

There’s your example of another reason,
Not a good one, but a loophole.

(posted 4/29/00, ©me, §me, all rights reserved,
international copyright secured, you heard it here first, before it happened in the future)

4

There was a song in the 60’s (or maybe 50’s) that had a title something like “Lover’s Symphony”, with a melody from Bach (I think from the Anna Magdelena notebooks, if that helps). Was that song copyrightable as a whole, or just the lyrics written for it? What infringement would recording it mean?

Just curious,

panama jack

Well if the music was Bach you can be pretty sure that it was what they call ‘public domain’, ie. you can’t own Bach, or even his music, just the book that it’s printed on.

Can’t copyright Bach, too late.
Use his music?
No charge.
Public Domain means, no charge.
Free to use, as you wish.
Write down your newly discovered revelation, and you can call the book yours, but not the music.

So far, hearing and breathing, are still free.

The lyrics though,
If you were to use the lyrics, then you’d have to pay.
Even if you personally put them over the top of some other public domain music.

All that infringenment means, is that you didn’t ask permission in advance.
You can always apologize, and then pay the correct royalties.

But they never come looking unless money is involved.
If no one hears it but you?
You owe zero.

Now for the real money,

(as if you stole a song or part of it for your own use)(and this is the imaginary royalty amounts)

If you hear it, the charge is .0001459 cents per listen.
If I hear it, the charge goes up to .015 cents per listen.
But if everybody else starts listening, the price goes up to .64 cents per play, times onehundredthousandmillion plays,
Starts to add up to real money.
Thats when you’ll get sued for infringment.
Not before.

5

  1. The dates indicate that certain sections are copyrighed in 1998, others in 1999, and others in 2000. It’d be at least 70 years before it made any difference, and by then the information will be so obsolete that no one will care.

  2. It depends.

a. If you took public domain text and set it to music, the music would be copyrighted, the text P.D. (say, Paul McCartney’s “Golden Slumbers” – though McCartney did change the lyrics slightly) Same thing if you added lyrics to P.D. music (“Lover’s Concerto” “A Whiter Shade of Pale”).

b. If you rewrite the text, your rewritten version is copyrightable. I’m not sure how much you have to rewrite to claim protection, though. Changing a word or two probably wouldn’t be enough. (If you really want to know, try to find one of the old Ace editions of Lord of the Rings and compare it to the later versions. The Ace edition was P.D. – due to circumstances that no longer apply – but Tolkien did enough rewriting to get copyright protection for later editions.)

c. If you add annotations, the annotations are copyrightable, but not the original text. Same for any commentary (that’s one reason why every P.D. work reprinted in book form has an introductory essay – the essay can be copyrighted even if the text cannot).

d. I’m not sure what you mean by “a modern orthography.” If you mean a “Good News Bible” translation (which put the KJV into modern vernacular), that can be copyrighted (though I believe the Good News Bible was put into the public domain to spread the word).

  1. In the case of “Lover’s Concerto,” (and “Happy Birthday to You”) you can record the music freely. If you add the lyrics, though, you owe a licensing fee to the lyric writer. You can’t print the lyrics without permission.

“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.

www.sff.net/people/rothman

6

Even if the music is public domain, the performance or recording of that music is a copyrightable work. Also, in many countries typographical editions of works are copyrightable works. (i.e. if you set up and lay out a new edition of a public domain work, your EDITION, its physical format, is a copyrightable work.) These rights don’t stop anyone else from performing or recording the same public domain music, or setting up another edition of the same public domain work.

There is also some property-rights theories, apart from copyright and in jurisdictions that don’t protect published editions explicitly as copywrightable works, that if you “strip” someone else’s setting-up of a typographical edition of a literary work, even if the work is in the public domain, then it is appropriation of labour for which the original typesetter/publisher can demand compensation.

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7

RealityChuck -

I meant to say “modern orthography and/or grammar”. I wasn’t sure if the KJV was originally published with a consistent spelling or not, and forgot to include the rest.

The intent of that was to imply similar works that are often modernized – It seems that in that case, it would just be minor variations( hence not original enough), while the modernized language version you pointed out would be. That was the distinction I was looking for as an extension to that question.

pj

Come and tell me who and what you are.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
-Kahlil Gibran