Talk:Peter John Douglas

Copyright issue

The Archive.org version of my reference, A naval biographical dictionary: comprising the life and services ..., Volume 1 By William R. O'Byrne, has this: 'There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.' See: http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924027921372/cu31924027921372_djvu.txt
This would appear to evidence the fact that this article is not subject to copyright. Shipsview (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

O'Byrne's work was published in 1849 and is clearly no longer in copyright. This article is allowable under the same justification that articles from the more recent, but still out of copyright, Dictionary of National Biography are copied into Wikipedia. Benea (talk) 07:41, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

And having looked at User:Shipsview's talk page, I feel some fallacies about copyright law, and how it applies to wikipedia, are being introduced. Firstly there is no restriction on copy and pasting public domain text into wikipedia, though there are usually issues with the quality and formatting of the original text that make it a suboptimal way to create articles. The majority of editors would prefer not to create articles this way, but it is not mandated against. The rewriting of articles to address formatting, stylistic and other issues introduced from the original source is usually requested, and is something I would be prepared to do myself once the copyvio report is settled. The outright deletion of the material is not required under policy however. The argument has been made that 'even if a copyright on the original work has expired it is quite possible that someone else renewed the copyright'. There is some truth to this, but it is not applicable in this instance. See Wikipedia:Public domain, specifically Wikipedia:Public domain#Derived works and restorations of works in the public domain and Wikipedia:Public domain#Copyright restorations. As an 1849 work, this material is out of copyright under the Berne Convention which sets a general 'life + 70 years' and American copyright law, which uses 'works published before 1923'. While a later publication of this work may create a new copyright if it introduces enhancements and alterations, it would not create a new copyright over the original source texts such as the 1849 publication. ('In short: These may give rise to new copyright on the new work, but not on the public domain original.') To give an example of this, the Dictionary of National Biography, published in the late 1890s and early 1900s, is no longer copyrightable. Recently the work was republished as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, featuring a number of updated and expanded entries. While this particular work is copyrightable, the Dictionary of National Biography remains out of copyright. The same would apply to any more recent publications of O'Byrne's work. Incidentally I work in this field a lot myself, and I can say to that to the best of my knowledge, that this work has not been republished. Copyright on works can be renewed under treaties like Berne when copyright laws are standardised, altering the copyright laws of countries. Berne enforced a EU wide level of 'life + 70 years', renewing the copyright on works that had already expired in some countries. Due to the antiquity of this source, it is still comfortably outside the new limit. Benea (talk) 08:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)