Copyrights are not transferable like that once they expire, they expire.

Further, that's opposite the entire purpose of Archive.org

Where are you getting this information?

If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo. If I make a copy of anything, then I own the copyright on the copy. What if, in time, the only copy you could get hold of was my copy. My copy would be copyright me and you’d need to wait for it to become public domain before you could use it under your terms

> If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo.

That's 100% not true. Please stop spreading misinformation because you have no idea what you are talking about.

"According to a landmark 1999 federal district court ruling, The Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd., Plaintiff v. Corel Corporation, 'exact reproductions of public domain artworks are not protected by copyright.'"

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/museum-painting...

The important word is ‘exact’. Non exact means the copy contains copyrightable differences.

You're just flat out wrong dude. You've got some very bizarre believes about copyright law and I can't fathom where you got them. Whoever you learned from did you a great disservice, or if you 'taught' yourself then you didn't do a very good job at reading.

Thats a bit unfair; copyright is a fairly unintuitive concept if you haven't been exposed to it.

That's a fair point, but somebody without much exposure to copyright law should avoid saying inflammatory things like:

>"The internet wayback machine is one of the biggest copyright thiefs in my opinion."

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17220943)

Hah, I stand corrected

If I take a video of jimi Hendrix improvising guitar, then he owns the copyright on the music, but I own the copyright on the recording

I believe that in the context of copyright, 'exact' doesn't mean a 100% perfect copy. If I make a film, I hold the copyright for it whether its distributed on VHS, DVD, or online streaming, even if the quality on VHS is different than the film shown in theaters. It'd be like if changing an image from jpeg to tif changed its copyright status. Your example elsewhere of correcting a few typos and saying it's a different work is similar: it's still the same work, even with the minor tweaks.

Anyways, copyright is weird and complicated and there are many people who don't really understand it. But your theory that archive.org is going to get a copyright on everything they scan and store is not rooted in any sort of legal reality.

> If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo.

If the photo meets the requirement for independent copyright ability, which requires being a distinct creative work, that's true, and for a photo that would often but not always be the case.

For a simple non-transformative digital copy, there's no copyrightable new work and no copyright in such a work.

> What if, in time, the only copy you could get hold of was my copy. My copy would be copyright me and you’d need to wait for it to become public domain before you could use it under your terms

If someone was copying elements that were original in your work of the photograph, true, but if they were merely copying the pubkic domain text of which you had taken a photograph, no, not true at all. Copyright protects your original work.

The difference is that picture is a derived work. When you just make a copy you don't get copyright over the copy.

> It will be inaccessible until it becomes public domain, but the copy that you download from archive.org will be copyright archive.org. You can get the music from somewhere else, if you can, you most likely won’t be able to.

No.

> For example, if a book published in 1995 is a reprint of a book published in 1900, then it is eligible. However, the onus is on us to prove that it is a reprint, and if it doesn't say on the TP&V that it is a reprint, confirming its eligibility may be impractical.

https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Volunteers%27_FAQ#V...

What if the 1995 copy had a few deliberate errors thrown in like spelling mistakes and re worded sentences, and your new copy copied those errors verbatim, then I could say that you copied the 1995 version, which was still under copyright by the publisher, and not the 1900 version which we can all agree is public domain

Adding a few spelling mistakes and reworded sentences will most likely not pass the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work#Originality_re..., and therefore not be considered a new copyrighted work.