[Foundation-l] [Ticket#: 126217-FW] Emily Dickinson poems

Sun May 29 07:30:31 UTC 2005

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Very good letter, but please Ray, don't end it the way you do :)
>
> It is kind of provocative, don't you think so ?
>
> Don't you folks feel like we're getting more and more stuff like this  
> these days ? 

Thanks for the compliment.  I admit that I was a little sarcastic.  I 
have received further correspondence from the individual, and now that I 
know that she is more than some random idiot who doesn't know what he is 
talking about I can respond with a different tone.

In my previous comments there was a point to be made about take down 
orders.  Under US law there are a number of elements that must be 
included in a take down order.  I think that one of the most important 
ones is the statement of legal standing.  This protects people from wild 
claims and demands from those really have no connection with the 
copyrighted work.  If a negotiated agreement were available it would not 
be with them.

As things stand there are some peculiar problems with this situation.  
Although Emily Dickinson died in 1886, it seems that 41 of her poems 
were published posthumously for the first time by Harvard University in 
1955.  This would make the copyright still valid in the United States on 
those poems until 2050. 

The same material also appears at http://www.emilydickinson.it/ but it 
appears that this is quite acceptable under Italian law.

Dr. Tanter also raised the question of the 1847 photograph of Emily 
Dickinson in the Wikipedia article, feeling that permission to include 
the photograph should be had from Amherst College

I haven't noticed a lot of claims of potential copyright violation

Ec