Thu Aug 22 23:10:07 1996

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Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 23:09:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: "James R. Adair" 
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Copyright
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The question of copyright is indeed an important one, and few people 
would argue that the author of an original work deserves to have 
exclusive rights to his or her own work for some period of time.  
However, the same can hardly be said for ancient documents, like the mss 
of the Old and New Testaments.  Transcriptions of ancient mss probably 
fall in the same category.  I personally can't see how an individual's 
transcription of a ms can be copyrighted.  After all, someone else might 
easily look at the same ms and arrive at the same conclusions concerning 
difficult readings.  The bottom line for me, however, is this: scholars 
in general should promote the dissemination of knowledge, and scholars of 
the biblical text in particular should support the free transmission of 
the contents of the biblical text.  In other words, it would be nice if 
the scholars themselves, those producing transcriptions and even 
translations of ancient texts, would voluntarily waive whatever rights 
they might claim in the interest of scholarship.  This is exactly what 
those involved in the ENTMP are doing, and I would like to see others do 
it as well.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

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