Rett,

Apologies if something I said was seen as unpleasant. I tend to focus on the
issue and sometimes forget the person on the other side.

The subject does begin "PTS dic -- public domain..." and if you follow the
argument about the copyright law itself, the fact that a publisher is now
out of business is not an issue. It is a matter of finding the original
author or his heirs and getting the rights from them.

As a farthest out scheme I could see that "might" not come under criticism
(...yeah! Sure.) I could see a modification of your original idea (leaving
out the 'to hell with the copyright laws' notion): After making a good faith
effort to find the original author or current copyright holder such cannot
be found, the work might be offered with a statement to that effect and with
an offer to withdraw the work or negotiate some sort of publishing
agreement. The fact is that the whole business of copyrights is a matter of
business, and the bottom line...ahum...is money. If there is no loss to
anyone because of the re-publication of some forgotton work, the maximum
penalty could be an order to withdraw availability. I think, in terms of
kamma, that this would fall within the scope of having taken something of
less than a half kahapana. Not righteous, but not too serious either. Making
a statement concerning what one is doing would at least show one was
conscious of the issues and would go a long way towards convincing anyone
concerned that there was no intent to bring harm (financial) to anyone.

"A serious, but unsuccessful effort has been made to locate the original
author of this work to request permission for digital reproduction. It has
been deemed that the greater good is served by the republication of this
work in spite of the fact that details of permission remain unresolved. We
welcome contact with the author, the author's heirs, or anyone with
information concerning the copyright status of this work so as to resolve
this issue to the benefit of all concerned."

Too wordy, but the general idea.

Take Care;
and may your life be long and happy!
Michael Olds

-----Original Message-----
From: rett [mailto:rett@...]
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 5:38 AM
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Pali] Re: PTS dic --public domain? & Skt materials

>
>The larger issue still remains: the PTS, for example, does not want the
>Dictionary available in this way and finding some tricky way to get around
>the law is going to cause bad feelings.

As I understood the original question, this wasn't about publishers
like PTS or Wisdom. They are easy to contact and, of course, their
wishes should be respected.

This was about now defunct/disappeared publishers or journals that
have been discontinued.

best regards,

/Rett



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