Copyrighting the Dead Sea Scrolls

Comments

1. John Howell says

   October 2, 2011 at 12:03 pm

   Philip et al.  As it happens my late wife was very interested in, and had a minor in Biblical Archaeology.  But this item is especially interesting since it touches on several quite different things.

    

   Yes, as Sig notes, it has been church scholars who have tried to suppress the dissemination of these scrolls in fear that they may contradict established church doctrine (which it should be noted has develped over the two millennia AFTER the period in which the books of the New Testament were written, discussed, and approved by a committee of MEN in the first place in the 4th century C.E.  And of course the books of the Old Testament date back even further.

    

   Yes, they are part of our cultural heritage, and no, no copyright laws existed when they were written, making the question of copyright moot.  Almost!  The “almost” is because U.S. copyright law, at least, makes provision for “previously-unpublished works,” and allows a copyright on first publication.  I believe that some of the music manuscripts stolen at the end of WW II and more recently recovered from either Russia or Ukraine have fallen under that provision.

    

   And while Dan is correct that the museum is offering photographs, that comes under the heading of facsimiles, not under the heading of original works of art, and as I understand it (and I may be incorrect) facsimiles can NOT be copyrighted unless they include new intellectual property in their content.  But of course even if I’m correct, that runs right into the matter of previously-unpublished works!

    

   And lastly, yes, museums (and private collectors as well) can control the dissemination and access to materials that they own and hold.  The way to think about this is that while the intellectual property written on the paper (or papyrus) may be in the public domain, the paper itself belongs to them.  Riccordi sat on Verdi’s scores for years and would not allow access to them.  And someone may still own unique copies of some of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensle’s music and may still be restricting access to them.

    

   This is why lawyers get the big bucks!

    

   All the best,

   John

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2. Dan Gawthrop says

   October 2, 2011 at 9:39 am

   The Dead Sea Scrolls may well be copyright-free. The proprietors of the website, however, are not offering the dead Sea Scrolls to visitors–they are offering photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and those photographs are fully protected by copyright. Should you wish to make your own photos of the scrolls (assuming you could get access) such photos would be “free to copy or reproduce” as you wish. Alternatively, you could decide to copyright your photos and thereby restrict their usage to users and uses which you approve.

    

   As for the museum’s incentive to protect their very substantial investment in making the photos, I would think that would be obvious: they would like to recoup some portion of their money so that it might be turned to acquiring and protecting additional parts of the “common heritage of humanity.” This kind of undertaking is not cheap, after all.

    

   Please note that the actual cultural value of the DSS lies not in the copyrighted photos but in their textual content. The textual content is being made freely available for all to research or study. Indeed, should your scholarship be equal to the task, you could make your own modern translation of that content and then either offer your work freely or control it by copyright as you wish.

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3. Sig Rosen says

   October 2, 2011 at 8:29 am

   The whole story of the discovery, sale, scholarly access to, denial by certain scholars of same for decades, as well as the ongoing processing and interpretation of the texts, not to say the historical role in context of the Three thousand year+ history of the Jewish nation is riddled with fascinating stories, and the care by the Museum must be seen in this light. The mainly American Scholars who currently “opened the closed book” against much opposition from a cabal of mainly church scholars- took matters into their own hands with chutzpah by publishing much. There are several books documenting their struggle.

   Note: Museums always control their holdings- they want to survive by publishing themselves. See disclaimers at most Museums. Note the phrase “without the permission”!

   SIR

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