Question on #copyright I intend to publish a public domain book, Myths and Legends of the Bantu. I think it's an important documentation of our cultures, but it has problematic and racist content. So my goal is to strip it of racism, fix some factual errors, etc. I can't claim authorship, original author has moral rights to that. I'll only claim editorship. But 1) Can I legally register a copyright to this edition? 2) Is this whitewashing the author of her racism?
Discussion
Loading...
@dilmandila does one of the creative commons licenses help you? They cover the free use by third parties, and comply with the copyright laws in most countries, afaik
@dilmandila Yes to 1) as far as I know--you don't own the original work, but you have rights to your editorial work. I don't think 2) is a problem if you make note of your changes.
@ljwrites @dilmandila Making note of the changes is a good idea. Put it in endnotes rather than footnotes maybe?
@gunchleoc @dilmandila I'd also do a preface making note of the general direction of the editorial work, in addition to other information on history, context, and editions.
@ljwrites @gunchleoc @dilmandila Same: a preface/foreword would enable you to call out the racism and factual errors in the original work.
You could also flag it on the front cover, by prominently displaying "edited and updated by Dilman Dila" under the original author's name.
I'm not a copyright lawyer (or any other kind of lawyer) but I expect you could claim copyright on anything you add.
Then again, if Dover can take out-of-copyright works, and claim copyright on their reprints, maybe you can claim it on the whole thing.
@KatS @ljwrites @gunchleoc @dilmandila
To avoid this particular issue, I always work with digital scans of public domain works rather than reprints, since these are clearly free of copyright (as multiple court cases in both Germany and the USA have made clear).
@juergen_hubert @ljwrites @gunchleoc @dilmandila Excellent bit of advice, that.
1 more replies (not shown)