Fw: public domain

[Doug Cooper]

FWD to sealang-l at nectec.or.th  from Chhany Sak-Humphry sak at hawaii.edu
----- Original Message -----
I have a question regarding the issue of public domain  of
Huffman & Proum's Cambodian System of Writing.
Why for the last 10 years or so, students can buy this book
directly from Yale?
---------------------------------

Response:
Anybody can publish and sell (or give away) texts that are in
the public domain.

  Development of both these books was funded by US taxpayers.
It appears that Huffman and Yale chose periods (5-10 years)
that would let the books recover their initial printing costs (so
that the material could be disseminated in those dark, pre-
Internet days), then renounced any copyright claim.  I have
appended the original copyright and release notices below.

  Yale, like anybody else, still has the right to print and sell these
books (DK books in Bangkok has republished the dictionary for
many years; there are also on-line and electronic versions of it).

  Other approaches to provided limited public-domain access
include allowing only free distribution (but retaining copyright on
for-profit production), and allowing a charge that covers the cost
of distribution.

Query:
On the computational side of the linguistics world, it appears
to be taken for granted (and may indeed be mandatory under
grant terms) that Federally funded grammars, lexicons, and the
like are released for reuse.  WordNet is probably the best-known
example; there are many others.

  I am curious whether anybody in more traditional linguistics
or language instruction has any actual experience of how
universities and the major public funding agencies (like USED
in particular) are resolving the potentially conflicting interests
of the author, university, and public re distribution of Federally
funded dictionaries and grammars these days.  Any war stories
or formal rules to report on?

   Doug Cooper


----------
_English-Khmer Dictionary_ (Huffman, Proum):
Copyright is claimed until December 31, 1988.  Thereafter
all portions of this work covered by this copyright will be in
the public domain.
  This work was developed under a contract with the Office
of Education ...
----------
_Cambodian System of Writing_ (Huffman):
Copyright is claimed until 1975.  Thereafter all portions of this
work covered by this copyright will be in the public domain.
  This work was developed pursuant to a contract between
the United States Office of Education and Yale University ...