This is an interesting area of copyright law. (The UK and US Copyright Acts are broadly very similar). Copyright is not a thing that you DO, you don't "copyright" a work. Copyright is a set of rights that the law *automatically* gives you over any *work* that you produce. (Similarly, you do not have to register to not be mugged or burgled - the law automatically gives you those rights as a citizen). Now, in the case of a set of train times, or football match fixtures, or piano numbers, the "work" that you "produce" is not the train times or the match dates or the piano numbers. That information already exists. What you make or produce, is a TYPOGRAPHICAL ARRANGEMENT of already-existing information. What you have rights over, in such a case, is your typographical arrangement. The information itself is not a "work", but the styling by you of it into a list is. Thus, with the Piano Atlas, if someone sat and laboriously copied out all the dates and numbers in a new typographical arrangement, and then had it published, either in printed form or on the web, that really would not constitute an infringement of copyright.law. On the other hand, if someone simply scanned the pages of Pierce Piano Atlas, and reproduced them on the web, or in their own printed edition, that WOULD be copyright infringement. In that case, the "work" - the typographical arrangement - has been copied. The publisher of Pierce does not "own" the information that a Splodget and Sons piano numbered 5003 was made in 1935. What he does own, is the arrangemernt of the information as a style of type in a position on a page in a particular composition. Where the contents of a book are, in and of themselves, the product on the author's mind, in tangible form, the situation is different. In a book of poems written by you, you own the poems themselves and have rights over their reproduction (and performance). Copright in general lasts for seventy years after the end of the year in which the author dies. If he leaves no will, his next-of-kin inherit the copyright. If he has a will, he can bequathe copright like anything else that he owns. Best, David. "Publishing the contents of a copyrighted book is both illegal and unethical. Participating in the benefits of this revelation of material and subsequent copying of it puts all parties at risk. Be warned. The publisher Larry Ashley is now in pursuit of this highly unprofessional, disgusting practice so many of you seem to take lightly. I challenge the PTG members in charge of this list to forthwith make statements and effect practices to stop this behavior now and prevent the inevitable law suit. For shame on this body of miscreants. Joseph Alkana RPT"
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