THURSDAY OF THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

I just found out about a new project at Catholic Answers called the "Original Catholic Encyclopedia". There is without question great kudos deserved to Catholic Answers to placing this important Catholic work on the Internet, but...

rarely have I seen such legal maneuvering to protect one's turf especially since this Catholic Encyclopedia published between 1907 and 1914 is in PUBLIC DOMAIN. That means that the copyright on the work is no longer in force and the work is available and thus belongs to the general public -- not to Catholic Answers.

Any special coding that Catholic Answers uses in placing this document on the Internet they may copyright, but the words and illustrations of the encyclopedia are PUBLIC DOMAIN and do not belong to Catholic Answers. Reading their website one would not know that.

I have never seen such "in-your-face" notification of claimed copyright. On their home page for the encyclopedia is a BIG RED BOX and essentially says, "hey, don't touch this, this is ours". To the scanned plates of the book they have book HUGH and intrusive watermark, SCANNED BY CATHOLIC ANSWERS. The watermark covers the whole page and at times makes it difficult to read the document. Most publishers who use watermarks create marks that are smaller and less intrusive.

Their extensive LEGAL statement has a User License seven pages long that would make Inspector Javert (a very legalistic policeman) in Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserable want to kill himself (which he did do when he realized the foolishness of his legalism).

Basically, we can use their website containing this PUBLIC DOMAIN encyclopedia but only if we agree to a blood test, sacrifice of our first born, get written permission to read any of it, and give up our citizenship if we dare to copy any of the PUBLIC DOMAIN material onto our own websites.

If we had the volunteers to produce this encyclopedia on the Internet we would, but we would make it available to the public without the extensive legalism and attempt to claim as ours what is not ours since it is a PUBLIC DOMAIN book after all.

There is a very ugly, and I believe unChristian, trend to be very proprietary with writings that ought to be readily available to everyone without such paranoid copyright claims. The Gospel, or important documents on the faith, should not be under the control of any person or company.

PUBLIC DOMAIN material can be used by anyone and permission is not required from anyone. I will continue to copy and publish Public Domain material at my pleasure and will not be bullied by those who wish to keep it to themselves.

On our site even for original writings that really do belong to the author are not under such extensive user agreements and copyrights. Our website uses the Common License which avoids the egotism and arrogance seen by many publishers and allows for a more free exchange of information. This applies to ORIGINAL works on our website. We claim no control over other people's copyrighted works and certainly not for PUBLIC DOMAIN works.

Catholic Answers ought to be ashamed of themselves for such a in-your-face extensive display of attempted control and ownership to dissuade anyone from copying or using Public Domain material that does not belong to them.


Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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