If you've just started reading this Reprint, the whole matter of the public domain, copyright, and licensing terms probably seems overly prominent. After all, the Holtzapffels' work is "old" (and indeed is clearly in the public domain in the United States and probably in all other countries as well). Why make an issue of it?
It matters because to Ornamental Turning enthusiasts Holtzapffel is important, yet it is exactly the sort of text which is likely to be re-proprietized and therefore to perish in a world increasingly focussed in staking out "intellectual property" lines. For a discussion of the Editor's opinions on this matter, please see his short essay on The Preservation of Knowledge. Since the Editor is an "eat your vegetables first" sort of person, he feels (I feel) it best to get this clarified at the outset.
In making this Reprint, in order both to do justice to the public domain nature of the Holtzapffel originals and to protect the copyability of this Reprint, there are three things that I (as Editor) believe that we must do:
The first of these things is simple safety. If we take care to work only from 19th century originals, then we avoid any possibility that some other reprinter might assert that we have violated some copyright interest they have in their reprint.
The second of these things is a courtesy and point of clarification to our readers and colleagues. We need to make it quite clear that what is in the public domain in the originals remains in the public domain in our Reprint. Thus, we must assert that our digital scans of the originals remain, as digital image files, in the public domain; that manipulations of these scans (to "clean them up," to resize them, to crop them to fit, etc.) also remain in the public domain; that, finally, our transcriptions of original public domain material to plain ASCII text, however time-consuming, also remain in the public domain. If it's a "transparent" copy or transcription of what's there in the public domain original, it must clearly remain in the public domain in our Reprint.
The third of these things is the most complex, and is the one that is likely to be viewed with the most suspicion. It is the intention of the Editor that this Reprint be copyable "with freedom." For the public domain material noted above, this is already accomplished. But this Reprint will introduce much "new" material - both new content (e.g., editorial remarks) and new text markup. One way to accomplish the goal of free copyability would be simply to place all of this new material in the public domain. This would work at first. However, it is unfortunately the case that often those who copy public domain material assert, regardless of the presence or absence of justification, new copyright on this material. For examples of this, just scan your library of facsimile reprints of once public domain books.
As Editor, while I cannot stop someone from re-proprietizing Holtzapffel as we have transcribed it, I do not wish to allow this re-proprietization to extend to new work. It seems to me that the path offered by the "Attribution - ShareAlike" licensing terms of Creative Commons provides a solution. You should read about it on the Creative Commons website. Briefly, this particular license says that anyone may copy the work (or modify it, or create derivative versions, or use it in their own work), but that if they do they must 1) attribute the source, and 2) license their copy or own work under the same Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license. All new material in this Reprint is, therefore, in copyright and licensed under these "Attribution - ShareAlike" terms.
The upshot of this is that if someone were to wish to create a proprietary, non-freely-copyable version of Holtzapffel based on this present Reprint, they could do so by extracting all of the public domain pieces and reassembling them. This would take substantial work. If someone wished to use some of the public domain pieces in their own new, proprietary, work (for example, a critical book or a work of art), they could do this, too. The public domain remains the public domain. However, they could not simply take the whole Reprint and slap their own copyright on it without violating the copyright on the new material and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license under which the new material is licensed.
On the other hand, anyone who wishes to copy the whole Reprint can do so, and can even modify it, create derivative works, or use it in their own work - so long as they license their copy or own work under the same "Attribution - ShareAlike" license.
It is only sensible that all contributors to this Reprint agree to honor these principles (even if they should happen to disagree with them). If you disagree with them to the point that you would feel uncomfortable contributing, do not contribute. This is your right, and there's nothing wrong with it.
If you do agree with these principles, and you wish to contribute, then you need to do some or all of the following things:
1. If scanning, scan only from original editions of Holtzapffel now in the public domain. Do not scan from any edition or reprinted edition that might conceivably, rightly or wrongly, not be in the public domain (even if a facsimile).
2. If scanning, for each batch of scans submitted, execute a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication and supply the "Receipt" of that dedication that you receive.
In the Public Domain Dedication process, when it asks you for the work's title, use something of the style "Pages XXX to YYY of Volume Z of the Holtzapffels' Turning and Mechanical Manipulation (18xx)" (substitute pages, volume, and date as appropriate, of course).
In the Public Domain Dedication process, when it asks you for the "Copyright Holder," use something of the style "[YOUR NAME], scanning from a public domain source" This gets around the limitation in the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication form which assumes that there is a copyright holder even if there is not, while using language that fits well into the text of the Receipt you will receive from them.
3. If transcribing using computer Optical Character Recognition, do so only from a scan produced from "copyright-clean" public domain originals as described above.
4. If transcribing by hand, do so only from clearly public domain originals as described above.
5. If transcribing (either way), for each batch of transcriptions execute a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (see item 2, above) and supply the "Receipt" of that dedication that you receive.
6. If contributing non-Holtzapffel material that is in the public domain (for example, a scan of a non-Ornamental Turning image from 19th century source which illuminates some aspect of Holtzapffel), execute a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (see item 2, above) and supply the "Receipt" of that dedication that you receive.
7. If contributing new material that you wish to place in the public domain, ensure that you own the rights to it and then execute a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (see item 2, above) and supply the "Receipt" of that dedication that you receive.
8. If contributing new material that you do not wish to place in the public domain, ensure that you own the rights to it, and in a letter to the Editor explain that you own it (for example, "this is a photograph that I took in my workshop") and state that you wish to license it under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license.
Note that if you take a photograph of something that you do not own or which is not visible from a truly public place, you may not in fact own the rights to your photograph, or may not own rights sufficient to license it under the "Attribution - ShareAlike" license. For example, if you take a photograph in a museum that permits photography for personal purposes only, the museum may not permit its use in this Reprint. As another example, if you are a restorer and you take a photograph of a customer's piece of ornamental turning apparatus, then the customer may have rights which may not permit its use in this Reprint. When in doubt, seek clarification first.
9. If contributing editorial or encoding services, indicate in a letter to the Editor that you wish to license your work under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license.
10. If scanning, transcribing, or contributing in any way and if using equipment, facilities, or time owned by your employer, supply a letter from your employer disclaiming any interest in your work for this Reprint.
I think that covers all of the cases.
Finally,
please contact the Editor
before
doing any significant amount of work,
lest there be misunderstandings or your work be duplicated unintentionally.
The Editor,
Dr. David M. MacMillan,
may be contacted at:
dmm@lemur.com
Please put something obvious in the "Subject" line,
such as "Ornamental Turning" or "Holtzapffel",
so that I am more likely to spot your e-mail if my
Internet service provider's
junk e-mail filtering traps it accidentally.
If nothing else works, I am a member of
Society of Ornamental Turners
and may be contacted through them.
The officers of the Society are, however,
busy volunteers;
please do not abuse their time.
The text and images of Holtzapffel are in the public domain.
All reprinted examples from Holtzapffel used in this page,
if any,
are dedicated to the
Public Domain.
Important disclaimers of warranty
and liability in the presentation of public domain material.
The rest of this page is
copyright © 2004 by David M. MacMillan
and other contributors as indicated.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License,
which includes important disclaimers of warranty and liability.
lemur.com is a service mark of
David M. MacMillan
and Rollande Krandall.
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Presented originally by lemur.com.SM
A Reprint of the Holtzapffels' Turning and Mechanical Manipulation