3 ms·

>The Spanish publisher Siloé has been authorized Authorized by whom? I mean there's surely no copyright protection for the original anymore. (I hope at least b

>The Spanish publisher Siloé has been authorized Authorized by whom? I mean there's surely no copyright protection for the original anymore. (I hope at least but you never know).

jwdunne 10y ago
With a manuscript that old, you'd need authorisation to look at it so you can see all the worm holes and artifacts.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Authorization to maintain the integrity of the artifact yes. Authorization to publish a copy of it? No. High resolution PDFs are freely available[0] and there already exists a crappy bound edition of these PDFs[1]. (Do not buy the linked to book. It's very subpar. Multipage foldouts are shrunk-to-fit, and there's no accompany text. It's literally, just the archive.org images printed and bound.) [0] https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599865556/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599865556/ref=oh_aui_deta...
  - jwdunne 10y ago
    Yeah but my point is that it will be pretty hard to produce a replica where you charge thousands per book with just a high resolution PDF alone. You want to see how the book looks in 3D, in real lighting and at different angles. A PDF cannot convey how that will look. The only way to produce a high quality replica is to look at the real thing and work to match how it really is. They would need authorisation for that access.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      Yeah but that still doesn't mean that Yale Library authorized the production of the the replica. They authorized access to the original. Nothing more. I can go to any library or museum and once granted access do anything I want with the data I acquire. Now granted, they may be curious about why I wanted access, and maybe I'd even do it under supervision in order to mitigate damage, but the data and the manifestation of that data becomes my own original transformative creative work. The library doesn't own it, or even a part of it, unless a specific agreement was made regarding that.
nkurz 10y ago
I'm not sure of the exact arrangement, but I presume that Yale University's Beinecke Library had them sign a contract in return for the physical access to the book, and that contract put conditions on how many books they were going to create. Copyright of copies of public domain artworks is odd: the original artwork is not under copyright, but a photo (and possibly a scan?) of the artwork can be. The US legal theory (I don't know about elsewhere) is that a photo of a public domain artwork can itself be an artistic creation, deserving of separate protection. For example, the photographer might have made an artistic choice to use a diffuse white light without glare, to have the entire frame in focus, and to crop the photo at the edge of the artwork. It is commonly thought that a mechanistic scan fails to meet this ridiculously low threshold of creativity, but this defense has not been well tested in the courts. So in the absence of a contractual agreement to the contrary, if you make a copy directly from the original, you are likely legal. But if you made a reproduction from a reproduction that could be considered itself an artistic work, you could be infringing on the copyright of that reproduction. I don't know what the rule would be for making a copy of an authorized "slavish" physical reproduction, but given the low bar for copyright, I'd guess it would still be considered infringement? Anyway, here's an overview of the legal situation in the US: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-can-get-copyright-right/ http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-c... Here's a link to someone who went ahead and created his own physical version from the published scans, printed on a color laser printer, then 'aged' by dunking them in coffee: http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-kolumne/2016/08/27/publisher-wins-rights-to-voynich-manuscript/ http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-kolumne/2016/08/27/pub... Here's a link with a little bit more detail about the arrangement between the publisher and the library: http://www.thelocal.es/20160821/tiny-spanish-publisher-clones-worlds-most-mysterious-book http://www.thelocal.es/20160821/tiny-spanish-publisher-clone... Finally here's the page about the Manuscript on the publisher's website, which might have more information if you read Spanish: http://voynich.siloe.es/manuscrito/ http://voynich.siloe.es/manuscrito/
- sethish 10y ago
  > Copyright of copies of public domain artworks is odd: the original artwork is not under copyright, but a photo (and possibly a scan?) This is often claimed by rights holders, but not generally true. The copy must be transformative and have distinct artistic merit. Basically any scan/photo that I/you/we would want from the owner of the book would not be copyrightable.
jay-anderson 10y ago
It is public domain, but as others have said the owner or library is likely using contract law to force some restrictions. The book 'Copyfraud' is good read to get some more info about what's going on here (http://www.copyfraud.com/ http://www.copyfraud.com/).

>The Spanish publisher Siloé has been authorized Authorized by whom? I mean there's surely no copyright protection for the original anymore. (I hope at least but you never know).

jwdunne 10y ago

With a manuscript that old, you'd need authorisation to look at it so you can see all the worm holes and artifacts.

jonathankoren 10y ago
Authorization to maintain the integrity of the artifact yes. Authorization to publish a copy of it? No. High resolution PDFs are freely available[0] and there already exists a crappy bound edition of these PDFs[1]. (Do not buy the linked to book. It's very subpar. Multipage foldouts are shrunk-to-fit, and there's no accompany text. It's literally, just the archive.org images printed and bound.) [0] https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599865556/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599865556/ref=oh_aui_deta...
- jwdunne 10y ago
  Yeah but my point is that it will be pretty hard to produce a replica where you charge thousands per book with just a high resolution PDF alone. You want to see how the book looks in 3D, in real lighting and at different angles. A PDF cannot convey how that will look. The only way to produce a high quality replica is to look at the real thing and work to match how it really is. They would need authorisation for that access.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Yeah but that still doesn't mean that Yale Library authorized the production of the the replica. They authorized access to the original. Nothing more. I can go to any library or museum and once granted access do anything I want with the data I acquire. Now granted, they may be curious about why I wanted access, and maybe I'd even do it under supervision in order to mitigate damage, but the data and the manifestation of that data becomes my own original transformative creative work. The library doesn't own it, or even a part of it, unless a specific agreement was made regarding that.

nkurz 10y ago

I'm not sure of the exact arrangement, but I presume that Yale University's Beinecke Library had them sign a contract in return for the physical access to the book, and that contract put conditions on how many books they were going to create. Copyright of copies of public domain artworks is odd: the original artwork is not under copyright, but a photo (and possibly a scan?) of the artwork can be. The US legal theory (I don't know about elsewhere) is that a photo of a public domain artwork can itself be an artistic creation, deserving of separate protection. For example, the photographer might have made an artistic choice to use a diffuse white light without glare, to have the entire frame in focus, and to crop the photo at the edge of the artwork. It is commonly thought that a mechanistic scan fails to meet this ridiculously low threshold of creativity, but this defense has not been well tested in the courts. So in the absence of a contractual agreement to the contrary, if you make a copy directly from the original, you are likely legal. But if you made a reproduction from a reproduction that could be considered itself an artistic work, you could be infringing on the copyright of that reproduction. I don't know what the rule would be for making a copy of an authorized "slavish" physical reproduction, but given the low bar for copyright, I'd guess it would still be considered infringement? Anyway, here's an overview of the legal situation in the US: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-can-get-copyright-right/ http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-c... Here's a link to someone who went ahead and created his own physical version from the published scans, printed on a color laser printer, then 'aged' by dunking them in coffee: http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-kolumne/2016/08/27/publisher-wins-rights-to-voynich-manuscript/ http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-kolumne/2016/08/27/pub... Here's a link with a little bit more detail about the arrangement between the publisher and the library: http://www.thelocal.es/20160821/tiny-spanish-publisher-clones-worlds-most-mysterious-book http://www.thelocal.es/20160821/tiny-spanish-publisher-clone... Finally here's the page about the Manuscript on the publisher's website, which might have more information if you read Spanish: http://voynich.siloe.es/manuscrito/ http://voynich.siloe.es/manuscrito/

sethish 10y ago
> Copyright of copies of public domain artworks is odd: the original artwork is not under copyright, but a photo (and possibly a scan?) This is often claimed by rights holders, but not generally true. The copy must be transformative and have distinct artistic merit. Basically any scan/photo that I/you/we would want from the owner of the book would not be copyrightable.

jay-anderson 10y ago

It is public domain, but as others have said the owner or library is likely using contract law to force some restrictions. The book 'Copyfraud' is good read to get some more info about what's going on here (http://www.copyfraud.com/ http://www.copyfraud.com/).