[INDOLOGY] NGMCP images and copyright law

Mon Apr 11 18:41:59 UTC 2022

I've just looked at this document from  Nepal Copyright Registrar's Office
http://nepalcopyright.gov.np/downloadfile/Eng_Brochure66Final_1573191647.pdf
which states on page 5.

 " The Copyright Act, 2002 provides the following terms of protection to
the authors/creators of the work:–  . . .Photographic works and applied
arts are protected for 25 years from the year of preparation of the work".

Based on that, NGMPP manuscripts photographed before 1997 would be in the
public domain.

Harry Spier

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 2:02 PM Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've been told off-list its likely that copyright for a photograph owned
> by a government entity  lasts 50 years from when the photograph was taken.
> Does the metadata for the NGMCP manuscript images include the date the
> microfilm photographs were taken.
> Harry Spier
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 9:27 AM Charles DiSimone <
> disimone at alumni.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20220411/ad577ec1/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 679 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20220411/ad577ec1/attachment.png>