Scanned public domain works -- and beyond

Following the 1709 Blog's earlier post on copyright in scanned versions of public domain works, we have received the following observations from barrister and copyright commentator Francis Davey:

"I've given the question raised in your 1709 blog a great deal of thought. In the LLM, which I am very slowly plodding through, I produced a research paper that touches on the subject. I have attached it for reference.

However, a key question is: to what extent has European law harmonised the threshold for authorial contribution? We know from Premier League that, for databases, the harmonisation is exact. Subsistence is the same for English law as it is for European law. That is unsurprising because the database directive, like the software directive, contains the phrase: "“no other criteria shall be applied to determine their eligibility for protection” which would appear to preclude any domestic form of protection that is different.

But the Copyright Directive doesn't contain such a condition. Could there be English and European copyright laws with different thresholds?

It seems that must be the case in the case of photographs because the Term Directive expressly states that “other photographs” may be protected.

As far as I know - and as a practitioner I don't read widely enough I know - this hasn't been thought about enough and I've seen no-one explore the implications properly.

Its worse than it looks. If there are two systems of protection: UK copyright applying to original photographs and European copyright applying to photographs which are their author's "own intellectual creation" then the UK system will not have inherited the changes wrought by European directives. There would be no "making available to the public" right, no term extension and so on.

Some judicial dicta seem to be a bit dismissive of there being a difference, but there clearly is for some works. Databases, for example, were clearly easier to protect pre-database directive. There are many older cases where the originality threshold was passed which would probably not pass muster under the "own intellectual creation" test.

In the case of photographs I argue, contra the views of Robin Jacob and the authors of a number of practitioner texts, that photographic reproductions of paintings are unlikely to attract much, if any, copyright (in the sense of that which is protected against infringement), but there are certainly views the other way which would contradict the "own intellectual creation" threshold.

It seems to me that, after Painer, scans of the kind you are talking about are not European protected, so they would at best be "other photographs" in UK law (there's no sufficient "formative freedom" about them I suspect).

Hut'ko writes about this here and is interested in "European originality" as am I. This is important stuff for some of my projects.

I wonder also about:
- perpetual copyright
- copyright in unpublished works

I've no idea if either can or should apply. But that's another question".

I hope that readers of this weblog will find these thoughts useful.  Something struck a chord with me where Francis writes, regarding software and databases, that  the respective Directive state that "no other criteria shall be applied to determine their eligibility for protection”. He adds that this would appear to preclude any domestic form of protection that is different. "But the Copyright Directive doesn't contain such a condition. Could there be English and European copyright laws with different thresholds?"

My thinking is that this is a perfectly reasonable inference to draw in respect of classical UK statutory interpretation on the basis of inclusio unius, exclusio alterius -- but I'm not convinced that it is a strong enough basis for interpreting EU law in the absence of further supporting evidence of legislative intent, particularly after Zino Davidoff v Gofkid. Also, I think that software and databases were regarded as green-field sites for which it was easier to set a single common standards whereas, regarding other works, there was already a heavy accretion of existing national law which could not so easily be homogenised.

Comments, please!

Scanned public domain works: what's the position in Europe now?

"As an avid reader of the 1709 Blog, I was wondering if perhaps you could spend some time on an analysis of the copyright status of Newton's notebooks", writes  Dutch IT lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet (who incidentally blogs in Dutch at http://blog.iusmentis.com/).  Arnoud continues: "Recently Cambridge released scans of Sir Isaac Newton's notebooks at http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton -- but with a notice stating 'Zooming image© Cambridge University Library, All rights reserved' at the bottom of the scan, e.g. at
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03996/. Can under English law such a copyright claim be made, where the scan appears to be a purely functional reproduction without intellectual activity by the scanning person? I would be grateful for any insights you could provide".


My immediate thought was that not only Cambridge University Library but numerous other institutions have asserted copyright in similarly-created works. Bridgeman Art Library's assertion of copyright in photographically reproduced images was litigated in the US, where the court, having considered English law on the subject, refused summary dismissal of the plaintiff's action but subsequently rejected Bridgeman's claim (there's a handy note on the background and litigation of Bridgeman's claim here).

I wondered whether, following recent Court of Justice rulings on copyright in Infopaq, Premier League and
Painer, the fact that the accurate scanning of public domain works is not the result of the author's own intellectual creation would lead to the conclusion that, under modern European copyright doctrine, there would be no copyright in the scans. Arnoud seems to be thinking along the same lines, it now appearing that the Court of Justice's approach is dispensing with the old notion of categories of protected works and replacing them with a more general concept: that of the author's own original creation.


Arnoud agrees with me that no harm would be caused by throwing this issue open to readers of this blog, in case we've missed something obvious or they have some valuable insights to add.