[Book] "The Voynich Manuscript" (Watkins reproduction)

[-JKP-]

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I was wondering, how exactly does it work when another publisher produces a full reproduction like this? Does Yale give their permission for part of the profit? Or is it considered fair use?

Koen, I was wondering the same thing a few months ago when I noticed a number of people selling facsimiles on eBay. I assume they were making them at home on their own laser printers, but laser printers are pretty good these days, good enough that these low-end facsimiles are selling. A mainstream-published book is not low-end.

But, I'm assuming that the VMS is in the public domain since copyrights rarely last more than 80 or 150 years or so, depending on the country. Only creative works can be copyrighted. A mere copy of a creative work (like a photo) is not a creative work (even if the owner or holding institution claims it as such) and thus is not copyrightable in most countries. If someone were to reinterpret the VMS drawings in a sufficiently original way, that could be given a fresh copyright, but that situation does not apply to facsimiles, only to original commentaries that might go along with the work.


There may be a few countries that provide minimal protection to high-resolution e-facsimiles of longer, older, creative works (most of them do not), but I haven't had the time to look into this.