[INDOLOGY] NGMCP images and copyright law

[Charles DiSimone]

Dear Harry Spier,

I believe you are thinking of the NGMPP and not the NGMCP, which is the
later caloging initiative started in the 2000s. Some years ago while I was
working at BDRC I had attempted to forge some agreement to make the NGMPP
images available online. For example, in Hamburg there is an intranet with
many of these images available to research staff (I'm not sure if this is
the case still). During a trip there, I had a meeting about this where I
laid out my understanding of copyright law, which I understand just as
Jonathan and Stefan have already explained, and was met with polite but
firm disagreement where I was told that it would be absolutely impossible
to make the images publicly available. I looked into the situation with the
National Archives in Nepal and, as Prof. Michaels has suggested, they do
not wish for these images to be freely available. I was told that this may
hypothetically change at some point, but at least five or so years ago it
was impossible. Good luck!

With my kind regards,
Charles

Dr. Charles DiSimone
Department of Languages and Cultures
Ghent University


On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 3:13 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Thank you Dr. Michaels,
> Its my understanding that the NGMCP project started around 1970, so some
> of the photographs/microfilm were taken over 50 years ago. That makes me
> wonder if by international copyright law, some of the earlier images are
> not already legally in the public domain.
>
> I think for books, if the copyright is owned by an individual then the
> copyright expires 50 or 75 years after the authors death, but if the
> copyright is owned by a government then the copyright expires 50 or 75
> years after the date of publication.  (I'm not sure if this is by
> international copyright law or just by Indian copyright law) and I'm
> wondering if it is the same case for photographs/microfilm. I.e. copyright
> expires 50 or 75 years after the photograph was taken.
> Harry Spier
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 4:38 AM Michaels, Prof. Dr. Axel <
> michaels at hcts.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
>
>> As far as I know, National Archives Nepal does not allow the NGMPP
>> microfilms or any scans  from manuscripts or documents to go online. The
>> reason ist the same as Jonathan mentioned: they want to make money. The
>> situation is terribly complicated and many colleagues have suffered from
>> it. However, you can always ask for a permission to publish the copies, and
>> the South Asia Institute branch office of Heidelberg University in Patan is
>> ready to give you assistance: see here:
>> https://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/kathmandu/
>>
>>
>>
>> What we do in our project on cataloguing and editing  historical
>> documents from the NGMPP collection (
>> https://abhilekha.adw.uni-heidelberg.de;
>> https://nepalica.hadw-bw.de/nepal/catitems/searchpage but unfortunately
>> today not reachable due to maitenance work), we publish images under a
>> special agreement with a low resolution .
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Axel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> [image: cats]
>>
>> *Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels*
>>
>> Senior Professor
>>
>> Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS)
>>
>> Südasien-Institut / South Asia Institute
>>
>> Universität Heidelberg
>>
>>
>>
>> Vossstr. 2, Geb. 4130
>>
>> D-69115 Heidelberg
>>
>>
>>
>> T: +49-6221-5415209
>>
>> E: michaels at hcts.uni-heidelberg.de
>>
>> W: https://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/krs/abteilung/michaels.html
>>
>>       www.hadw-bw.de/nepal.html,
>> https://www.hadw-bw.de/en/research/research-center/nepal-heritage-documentation-project-nhdp
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of "
>> indology at list.indology.info" <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Reply to: *Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>
>> *Date: *Sunday, 10. April 2022 at 14:56
>> *To: *"indology at list.indology.info" <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Subject: *[INDOLOGY] NGMCP images and copyright law
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear list members,
>>
>> Does anyone know, if according to international copyright law, the
>> manuscript images of the  NGMCP (Nepal German Manuscript Cataloguing
>> project) will eventually go into public domain. And if so, when.  Or do the
>> agreements signed between the project and the Nepal government supercede
>> this, and the Nepal government has copyright for the images forever.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Harry Spier
>>
>
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