[free-sklyarov] _Alice_ read aloud

[Huaiyu Zhu]

He is confused on at least three points.

1. A new typography on a public domain work may be copyrightable for
that new part, but nothing more.  Just like if you draw a new
illustration and publish it with some existing text, you have
copyright on the illustration but not on the text.  So theoretically
he could copyright his work in the sense of an artistic replica of a
piece of antique, but at most in that sense.

2. It is a false claim that the new work is not easily detached from
the original.  If it is transfered to any other font, it is separated
from his new font.  Or it could be extracted to plain text.  Or simply
read aloud.  If he does not provide means for users to separate these
two aspects of the work, he is selling a defective product - claiming
to be a book but really only a piece of decoration.  DMCA puts the
control in the hands of publishers, so he has a moral and contractual
obligation to provide them free of charge.  Otherwise he is like
selling photographic films that could only be developed using illegal
substances banned from any existing photoshops.

3. If his new font actually replicates the original, he might have no
copyright on it after all.  He could patent the electronic means of
producing such a font.  He could copyright the paramters used in this
process (such as the font metrics).  But certainly not the end result
if it is the same as the original.  If he write a paper about this
process, he has copyright on the paper.  These copyrights or patents
in no way extends to the original text or typography or design.

I was ready to believe that all this "read aloud" stuff was a fluke
accident.  His clarification now casts a much darker shadow over it.

Huaiyu Zhu


>To: ebook-community at yahoogroups.com
>From: pete at suba.com
>Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 09:55:15 -0600
>Subject: [ebook-community] RE: Various

>I guess I would like to reiterate that this version of Alice is not
>public domain but is a unique new work and copyrightable. My work on
>recapturing Carroll's exact typography and design was probably more
>exhaustive than his original work. It's copyrighted for that
>reason. But since the original work involved far more than just
>typography, I give it away as a tribute to Carroll's
>contribution. Since my work can't easily be detached from Carroll's in
>this form, my copyright gives me the right to control its use, but I
>keep it open. I certainly did not ask that the "Read Aloud" restriction
>be set on it, and Adobe has said that it was an accident in this case.

>
>Peter Zelchenko (pete at suba.com) Chicago, Illinois