Copyright: meta questions

[Luis Gonzalez-Reimann]

At 07:07 PM 10/21/96 BST, Vidhyanath K. Rao wrote:


>First: In US at least, it is not supposed to be possible to copyright
>material whose expression is unique. The usual examples are formulas
>and ``laws of nature''. Now would samhita and pada texts of Rgveda be
>copyrightable? Even if I happen to the first one to type them in?
>Should they be?
>
>To be specific, can anyone except BORI claim copyright on the critical
>edition of the Mahabharata?

As I understand it, what prof. Tokunaga has a well-deserved copyright on is
not the Mahabharata itself, but his particular electronic version of it;
just as a translator of a classical text owns the copyright to his
particular translation, but not to the text itself.  In that sense, yes, I
suppose the BORI has the copyright to the critical edition.


Luis Gonzalez-Reimann
University of California, Berkeley