www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Anyone with a Mohila Sluzhebnik?

Thanks for the suggestion of the Protection web site. I looked and, sad to relate, it doesn't seem to include the Mohyla Leitourgiarion. But it does include the Ruthenian Recension Liturgicon in Old Slavonic - which is now out of print, I believe - and that is certainly something worth having on the Internet.

The suggestion of having two or three - or more - request the same book for the college library is excellent, and likely to succeed. Go for it!

Incognitus

Well, I received a response to my request on another venue, and a gentleman kindly scanned and e-mailed me the material I needed.

Is it still illegal if no paper was involved?

Dave

"Is it still illegal if no paper was involved?" Now THERE is a potentially interesting question. I've noticed of late that some copyright notices make a point of mentioning that no copies can be made without permission, on any form whatever of information storage and retrieval system. That causes me to wonder about copyright notices which do NOT contain such wording. Must think about this.

Meanwhile, do ask your library to get the book.

Incognitus

Actually, a fascimille of public domain material cannot be copyrighted itself; what can be copyrighted is the introduction, etc that is added:

"Once material enters Public Domain it may be republished or copied in part or in total by anyone.

A reprint of Public Domain material can be copyrighted. However the copyright only applies to any new material (introduction, summary, tables, index, etc.) which was added to the original. The original material is still in Public Domain and can be used freely.
Contact the reprint publisher and or author if you have a question on what is original and what is new."

http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.shtml

So copy away!

Pay no attention to those guys in dark suits and sunglasses outside your home at night.

LOL! <- good one...

Heh, at my house, they would probably be priests picking up icons, prosphora, or any number of religious articles.

Dave

Distinguo - the original material certainly is still in the public domain. If the facsimile were nothing more than the equivalent of a photocopy, that would also be in the public domain. But once a pile of intellectual (and physical) labor has been invested into making the facsimile something fit to print and legible, THAT facsimile is certainly subject to copyright. Otherwise, why would people do such work? Here, Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms. Public Domain, here's a hopelessly illegible palimpsest or the equivalent - now go read it!

Incognitus

I don't see any evidence that what you write above is correct; the citation I provided states that only new material in for instance an introduction may be copyrighted.

People do the work because they know others will still purchase it if the new edition is easier to read, etc. But the text itself is simply not copyrightable again.

Anastasios

Dear Anastasios - I have not claimed that the text itself is copyrightable again; it isn't. I have claimed that the cleaned and restored version is copyrightable (it is - although there are countries and city-states which are not signatories to the relevant international conventions).

A couple of examples: Back in 1988, there were two different reprints of the Trebnyk of Peter Mohyla. One was done by the Ukrainian Catholic University; the pages were simply photocopied in black and white and the thing printed that way. Nobody could copyright that - and almost nobody can read it. Unfortunately, it was the first of the two reprints to appear. But that probably means that some library accessible to you has a copy. Try to read it. Then get your hands on the other reprint, done by Professor Zhukovsky for the Shevchenko Scientific Society and other ecclesiastical and academic organizations. It's done in color, the films of the pages were painstakingly cleaned, by hand - which took years of work. The result is a book which is not only beautiful but eminently legible. Professor Zhukhovsky and his publishers are fully entitled to copyrights, specifically on the original work which they added - including the cleaning of the pages on film.

Want another? Twenty years or so ago, a Swiss firm at great expense did a facsimile edition of the Book of Kells. Selling price for the resulting volume was US $18,000.00 at the time; it's probably more like $25,000.00 today. But unless you want free room and board in guaranteed accommodation for quite a number of years, I really would advise against "investing" in one copy and doing a reprint in Hong Kong or somewhere and then peddling the result in countries that do enforce international copyrights. The Swiss don't fool around with such violations. On the other hand, nobody can copyright the original book of Kells; if you can convince the Library that owns it to allow you to make color photocopies (and they won't allow you to do that, so don't waste your time), you will be free to make whatever use of those photocopies might please you.

Incognitus

Again, Incognitus, I was asking for a citation, not anecdotes. I simply wish to see what the law itself says, as the copyright site I saw didn't seem to mention the case you are talking about.

Anastasios

In any case, I was sent a copy (in PDF format) of the pages in question; I then printed these, passed them along to a gentleman for English translation; and I now have these petitions in English.

If I broke any laws in getting these prayers, I ask Saint Peter Mohila to pray to God for my forgiveness.

(I bet that St. Peter is thrilled that somebody will be using his petitions! )

Dave

Dear Anastasios,
So get yourself a lawyer who specialize in unusual copyright cases and ask himfor a legal opinion - and be prepared to pay for it. Professional services don't come cheap.

Dear Dave,
With reference to Saint Peter Mohyla himself, I should tend to agree with you. Actually, I suspect that the petitions in question can be found in any number of more recent sources (those votive Liturgy formularies passed into the votive Moleben tradition - and even as Liturgy formularies Jordanville published a whole collection of them a few decades ago). Enjoy!

Incognitus