[INDOLOGY] Highlights from the Sanskrit corpora

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Copyright is a slippery beast.  But the law is not *that* difficult in
broad outline.

What you say, Jonathan, about not being able to claim copyright over
editions, is definitely wrong.  One can.  Authors, editors, and publishers
do so all the time.  It's routinely printed on the back of the title page.

There *is* a precedent of some sort specifically in German law that
copyright on an edition expires after 25 years, and not the usual 60 or 70
years after the death of the author.  Some other countries are looking at
this German law and behaving accordingly.  See
Margoni, Thomas and Perry, Mark, Scientific and Critical Editions of Public
Domain Works: An Example of European Copyright Law (Dis)Harmonization
(November 18, 2011). Canadian Intellectual Property Review, Vol. 27, p.
157. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1961535 (PDF)
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/mb8mc9rpsc1q2wb/Margoni%202011%20SSRN-id1961535.pdf?dl=0>

But copyright inheres in all sorts of things.  So, a book contains text
written by an author.  The author has copyright of that (unless they sign
it away).  But the book also has a certain design, created by a book
designer.  That may be subject to copyright, if it is particularly
original.  Someone created the typeface and owns the copyright of that.  So
you could get the author's permission to photocopy the book and the
designer and typeface creators could still sue you for breach of their
copyright.  It's all very vexing.

In the case of the Mbh, I think there's a arguable case that BORI owns
copyright of the text, but Prof. Tokunaga co-owns copyright of the
electronic transcription.  Because he made something new and unique,
especially by dividing compounds and so forth, thereby creatively adding
original content.

The Wikipedia page on Copyright <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright>and
on infringement <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement> are
good, incidentally.  As the latter page says,

Shifting public expectations, advances in digital technology, and the
increasing reach of the Internet have led to such widespread, anonymous
infringement that copyright-dependent industries now focus less on pursuing
individuals who seek and share copyright-protected content online, and more
on expanding copyright law to recognize and penalize, as indirect
infringers, the service providers and software distributors who are said to
facilitate and encourage individual acts of infringement by others.

So while it's unlikely that you personally would be pursued for putting the
BORI Mbh on your website, the website maintainer or even hosting business
might be pursued.

Best,
Dominik


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