Tertullian.org will be inaccessible for the remainder of the month. This is because on 30th August and 1st September my site was hit by massive overusage of the Additional Fathers url — apparently all the index page — with the result that my ISP intends to charge me $40 overusage fees unless the average drops. I can find no way to avoid this except by taking down the site and hoping for the best. My apologies to everyone.
Bodmer mss 14/15 (P75) sold to private collectors, bought by Vatican
There have been some posts in the PAPY-L list alluding to the fact that back in November the Bodmer Foundation in Geneva sold two of its priceless papyrus codexes in order to raise funds. The two were mss. 14 and 15, which together are numbered p75 date from the early 3rd century, and contain the gospels of Luke and John. They were sold to a ‘private collector’; a term that brings sweat to the brow of anyone who followed the Gospel of Judas saga. Fortunately the Vatican Library stepped in and bought them in March with the assistance of some folks in Alabama. Some details here.
This sort of thing makes everyone nervous. I infer from it that the Bodmer foundation is not financially stable, and therefore that this will happen again. I would myself feel much less nervous if these manuscripts had been digitally photographed and were freely accessible online. While they are not, this sort of thing is bad news.
This week also the National Library of Scotland suffered an accident with its sprinkler system, soaking various parts of the collection, although apparently without permanent loss. I don’t know the NLS policy on digital photography, but again this highlights how vulnerable our great collections are.
Pre-1800 Church library sold for almost nothing
Libya and Leptis Magna
I’m off to Libya for a long weekend in a couple of weeks. Actually I went 18 months ago, but didn’t see as much of Leptis Magna as I would have liked. This time I hope to walk down to the quayside, and walk across the sandy beach that runs between the breakwaters of the silted-up harbour. On the eastern wharf the warehouses are apparently pretty much intact, and a temple of Jupiter Dolichenus is somewhere beyond that.
I’ve never been able to find out much about research and archaeology in Libya. Emails to people who might know have all been ignored. I wish that I knew more.
Vatican Library Syriac manuscripts — quoting and transcribing
Syriacologist Steven Ring tells me that he has asked the Vatican Library whether he needs their permission to quote from their manuscripts, or produce an edition of a text contained in one. They responded:
We are pleased to inform you that you don’t need permission from the Vatican Library to quote a BAV siriac ms. on a web page.
I don’t think that any kind of copyright could apply, in fact. But well done to the Biblioteca Apostolica for saying so.
More copyright and the web
I have a page on my website the finds of manuscripts at Kellis in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt, with some photographs of pages of the books, which I found online. Today I had a kind email from Dr Colin Hope of Monash University in Australia. He asked me to remove them, as they were his copyright, and of course I have done so. No blame to him; he was polite about it, and is quite within his rights to ask this. I would respect his wishes anyway, as the leader of the excavations. But this is a first for me, not least since I avoid copyright material like the plague. There was a time online when images routinely wandered all over the web.
I wonder if there is a larger issue which perhaps should be considered. Most scholars are funded out of general taxation. Is it quite proper that the results should be copyright to a particular scholar, or university? Shouldn’t the copyright vest in the public? Does it benefit either the public or scholarship to prevent images of excavation finds being circulated? If so, how; if not, should we allow this to happen?
Perhaps this is another area where the law has yet to catch up with the existence of the internet and the consequent implications.
Kudos to the Academia Belgica in Rome
I am mildly stunned and impressed! The Academia Belgica in Rome hold the papers of Franz Cumont. I wrote to them asking whether they had copies of an unpublished Italian translation of part of Ms. Mingana 142, and I got a very nice email back from Dr Pamela Anastasio, the librarian, confirming that they did, and offering options for photocopies (0.5 euros) or jpgs (1 euro) of the 6 pages. Of course they take money by bank-to-bank transfer, as European libraries tend to do. Being in the UK, it was going to cost me 21 euros to send 6 euros, and I asked if I could just send a 10 euro note by post. By return I got an email with the jpgs on, and agreement. It is astonishing to encounter such helpfulness, well beyond the path of duty. I certainly never expected the items before I had paid for them. Well done the Academia Belgica! Long may they flourish!
I wish that I could think of any means to repay their kindness.
Egyptian copyright law
I have online the first 800 years of the History of the Coptic Patriarchs of Alexandria. But more exists in various publications, and I keep getting emails from Copts about it. However one version that I know of is of uncertain status, not least because I cannot find out what Egyptian copyright law actually is!
Now I was able to find this poster issued by the software alliance in Cairo:
“The copyright law in Egypt No 354 of 1954, amended in 1968 and 1975, was amended for the third time by the law No 38 in 1992 to cover explicitly the protection of computer programs. In 1994 it was amended for the fourth time to make the protection period applicable to computer software fifty years from the author’s date of decease, or from the publishing date if the author was a legal person.”
This is supported by this site which states:
“The Copyright Law No. 354 for 1954, which was modified by the Law No. 29 for 1994, allows for copyrightable work in general and computer software in particular. Egypt is also a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, ( PARIS Acts) and the TRIPS. Original works of literature, art and science, regardless of type, importance or purpose are protected. This includes works of art expressed in writing, sound, drawings, photography and motion pictures, such as books, writings, speeches, oral works, plays, dramatic works, musical compositions, films, phonographic works, applied art, 3-D works and computer programmes are protected for the lifetime of the author plus 50 years following his/her death. In order for protection to be effective, the work of art is to be original and includes personal efforts, innovation and new arrangement.”
So for texts it seems to be life+50 years, as in Canada.
Update (29/08/07): This link confirms this, and includes the text of the 2002 law which indicates that where there are several authors, the last survivor’s date of death applies. It still doesn’t make clear whether this applies retroactively, but I think that I will presume that it does. http://www.agip.com/ clarifies that the older laws were cancelled and replaced by the 2002 one. My thanks to Dr Amir H. Khoury of Tel Aviv
University for clarifying some issues pertainig to Egyptian Copyright law.
Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik (ZPE) old issues online
From the PAPY-L list I learn of these, at
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads
A number of the articles are in English. Papyrology resources are at
Migne online
I have just discovered the Documenta Catholica Omnia site. This seems to contain a very large chunk of materials, including a lot of the Patrologia Latina. Worth a look, anyhow.