atw: Re: Copyright - legislation
- From: Michael Edward Granat <megranat@xxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 16:07:28 +1100
Dear Petra (Liverani),
Typically, a work in the public domain may be reproduced or published
without permission, provided that the author / original source is properly
credited / acknowledged and that any and all accompanying disclaimers or
notices stay with the work.
Some public domain works include specific conditions of use notices. Some
do not.
It is, however, almost always wrongful and an infringement of copyright to
disassemble or modify the work in any way, including changing it into
another electronic format or altering the manner in which it was published,
right down to paragraph formatting and numbering, let alone changing it
from a relatively protected and unchangeable, platform independent format
(Acrobat) into an open-slather format that any mug can use to extract that
material and use or modify it for his or her own purposes (such as Word).
Because something is in the public domain, does not mean that the copyright
of its originator does not prevail.
There might be no fees involved for its use, but there are usually severe
penalties imposed by courts for its abuse.
For example, a legal software firm adapting British legislation (drafted at
great expense and effort by the British legislature) for local use (and
almost certainly with the intention to make a profit from this as part of
something else) after disassembling it into another format for ease of
further use and disassembly, will almost certainly bring with it a
horrendous legal tussle, with mammoth financial consequences, if this was
done without the expressed written permission of its authors and owners.
It falls into much the same category as the disassembly of software and can
bring punitive penalties for redress.
If you use something by someone else as part of your own work, especially
for a purpose or in another form than it was originally released, this is
called plagiarism.
Don't say that you were not warned.
Michael Granat
Write Ideas
At 15:15 13/11/2003 +1100, you wrote:
>I don't know what your definition of public domain is. I thought a work in
>the public domain meant that it could be freely used by anyone without
>asking permission - that doesn't mean it shouldn't be acknowledged - there's
>a difference between passing something off as your own or using it with
>acknowledgement. I could quote huge tracts of Henry James without paying a
>copyright fee but I wouldn't want to try to say I wrote them myself. In the
>case of leglisation, its source is the most significant aspect to it, so
>people are hardly not going to acknowledge it. Besides, who'd want to take
>credit for the writing of most legislation?
>
>Regards,
>Petra
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