Status Quaestionis of Copyright of Critical Editions

From dm-L:

“Dear Colleagues,

Without inviting a deluge of personal opinions or advocacy, I am wondering if anyone could inform me of the current state of legal decisions regarding copyright of critical editions of medieval texts. In other words, I am just curious about the current legal status of such copyright (in any legal context, US, UK, EU, etc).

I read recently of this decision in France which may be relevant (http://apocryphes.hypotheses.org/389) and was wondering if perhaps there were any recent publications in the field of DH, law, or cultural heritage preservation that tried to summarize the current legal landscape. Some what discouragingly, a top English language google search for this topic (https://www.google.com/search?q=Copyright+Status+of+Edited+Ancient+Texts&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) returns a page from 1995, so this is an issue that has been a developing question for a while.

p.s. apologies for cross-posting to Digital Classicist members, but it seems that list may also have some input.

Best,

David A. Michelson

Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity
Vanderbilt University
www.syriaca.org”

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