An repons a: Pou yon jistis san fòskote Editè konbitayisyen.com te ekri a,
Men sa Marilyn Mason te ekri sou sijè sa, le 4 mas 2002:
Re: Who Owns Haiti's National Treasures?
Posted At 15:26:53 03/04/2002
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On Saturday, March 2nd, I initiated this thread because I had some serious concerns about Haiti's National Treasures (her patrimony); not only geographical locations and national monuments, but also Haiti's official documents.
I did not introduce this thread as an academic exercise; I sensed trouble was brewing at the level of conflicting interests with regard to the recent Internet availability of some pivotal Haitian documents in Haitian Creole.
The storm which broke out Sunday, March 3rd, within WOH's Haitian Creole-language public forum (Fowòm Ayisyen) attests to that fact.
Beneath that storm of personal accusations of theft, rape, etc. by one online publisher of HC texts against two institutions doing their level best to also advance the cause of HC, is something far bigger than the individuals or organizations involved .
The baseline issue is this: What rights belong to a publisher of electronic documents which have been derived solely by means of utilizing modern technology to make more widely available on the Internet already legally copyrighted print documents which might either be out-of-circulation or have been produced in such small quantities that most of the Haitian population cannot get their hands on them?
What does Copyright Law say about this?
Here are some relevant findings, upon which I based my behavior in making available online for educational purposes 5 important Haiti National Treasures (Haiti's Constitution of 1987, Haiti's Accord with the UN on behalf of Children's Rights, 3 literacy-related booklets produced by the Literacy Department of the Haitian Government), initially digitized by Prophète Joseph and made available for the very first time at Konbitayisyen.com, but which I further edited in order to make them more readable and more typographically correct:
The copyright for the print version of Haiti's 1987 Constitution which Prophète digitized belongs to Éditions Libète, Imprimerie Deschamps, Port-au-Prince, 1996.
According to Copyright Law:
- If a new work merely recasts the copyrighted material in a different medium, then it is "derivative" and infringing.
- If a new work builds upon copyrighted material but adds new content, then it is "transformative" and non-infringing.
Prophète Joseph's digitization of Deschamps' copyrighted print work falls into the first category. He merely changed the medium from print to electronic; he contributed no substantive changes to content. If, in addition, he did not obtain Deschamps' permission to digitize his copyrighted print property, Prophète's "derivative" work is considered to be "infringing" upon Deschamps' copyright. As such, according to Copyright Law, because of that infringement, Prophète's electronic version is not copyrightable.
I built upon Prophète's uncopyrightable "derivative work" and produced another "derivative work" (my corrections cannot be considered substantive enough to warrant my work being considered "transformative"). Therefore, I too, cannot copyright such a "derivative work".
And I have never attempted to.
I did my "derivative work" simply as a public service so that the job of reading the Haitian Constitution in Haitian Creole would be made easier for the reader; so that the goal of literacy could be advanced; so that there would be positive reinforcement of HC orthographical and lexical consistency.
The same principle holds for the UN Children's Rights document; the same principle holds for the 3 Haitian Government Literacy Department's instructional booklets.
I have not infringed upon Prophète because he does not have a legitimate copyright to those electronic documents.
He just plain does not own the electronic copyright to those documents which he took the initiative to digitize because he did not obtain permission from the ones who hold the print copyrights to those very versions. Therefore, even though he did a lot of work to make these documents more widely available, he cannot claim ownership of that which is legitimately copyrighted by another.
That being the case, however, on all 5 documents which I have further edited, I properly attributed Edisyon Konbit for having produced the first electronic version of these documents, and I provided a direct link to the Konbitayisyen.com website.
In the case of the HC version of the Haitian Constitution of 1987, I personally informed Henri Deschamps of my activities on behalf of further editing the current online version of his legally copyrighted print document and he registered no objection. Did my colleague Prophète Joseph take that critical precaution?
These 5 documents are Haiti National Treasures, not the personal or commercial property of any of us who may have contributed to make them more widely available.
Marilyn Mason
Repons sou sijè sa:
- Pou Madan Mason sèlman Editè konbitayisyen.com 29/3/2002