A Swing and a Miss
I was reading an otherwise interesting NYTimes article about a sale of a copy of the Magna Carta, and I saw this:
I find this very hard to believe. The Magna Carta is from 1215 - any copyrights have long since expired. Furthermore, government works aren't subject to copyright. Furthermore, fuck you. I'm willing to bet everything that there are multiple privately held copies of the Magna Carta in the US.
It is the only copy in the United States and the only copy in private hands.
I find this very hard to believe. The Magna Carta is from 1215 - any copyrights have long since expired. Furthermore, government works aren't subject to copyright. Furthermore, fuck you. I'm willing to bet everything that there are multiple privately held copies of the Magna Carta in the US.
posted by James | 11:22 PM
1 Comments:
Actually, I don't think that's what they meant:
The Perot Magna Carta dates to 1297 and was endorsed by King Edward I. The National Archives said that of the 17 original versions that still exist, 4 are from the reign of John; 8 are from Henry III; and 5 are from Edward I. Mr. Neilson said that some jurists consider the Perot Magna Carta to be the most important one because it was the one that was entered into the statute books in England.
Yes, you can purchase a copy of the Magna Carta (or read it online) but these 17 are the original versions.
Incidentally, while yes there is no active copyright on the Magna Carta, it is not necessarily true that government works aren't subject to copyright. Though under federal law, works of the U.S. government are placed in the public domain, this is not true of the British government.
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