On Thu, 2 Feb 1995, David Condon wrote [quoting an earlier message]:
> >
> > But the point I wanted to raise, had to do with intellectual property
> > rights and copyright. If the Enola Gay didactics were to have been scanned
> > and put up on the net for all to see, would this have been a violation of
> > copyright? Intellectual property rights? I think it is a wide open
> > question. Those labels were the fruit of someones intellectual efforts.
> > Do those labels belong to the individual(s) even if not published? Or to
> > the SI (and by extension the amurican taxpayer)? Anyone got any thoughts?
>
> You are right. They are probably subject to copyright. U.S. Government
publicati
> ons
> are in principle not copyrightable, but there are all kinds of exceptions and
> loopholes to that rule. The Smithsonian is not an organ of government in the
> strict sense (I looked it up: if I remember correctly, the U.S. Government
> Manual sez it's an "Independent Trust Instrumentality") and the Smithsonian's
> books, recordings etc. _are_ copyrighted, as we all know. Copyright also
gives
> the holder a right to _prevent_ publication if that is their choice.
>
> I can imagine a situation (_strictly_hyopthetical_, mind you) where the
actual
> authors of the exhibit texts might like to publish their work in some other
> venue but the NASM, wishing to avoid further embarassment, might act to
> prevent it. And they could do that. Now that would be really ironic.
>
> I think the ethical issues are pretty murky, though. These texts are, and
> should be, news. They are a matter of public concern. We have just watched
> while a costly, embarrassing fiasco has been played out, over an institution
> that is taxpayer funded at least in part. The exhibit was scotched, at least
> in part, because of pressure from elected government officials. Numerous
> pressure groups have had their chance to go over the primary sources, while
> the ordinary citizen's access to the same documents and the chance to _make_
> up_our_own_minds about it has been practically zero.
>
I don't think there's much of a problem here. (1) The authors are
Smithsonian employees working on the Institution's time, and their
product belongs to the museum. (2) The Smithsonian has, in effect,
published the text by distributing it widely, including (selectively!) to
the press. (3) Any attempt by the Smithsonian to use its alleged
copyright to suppress further dissemination would be futile and risible.
(4) I hope and believe that Secretary Heyman intends the scheduled spring
seminar on controversial museum exhibits to include a full and open
disclosure and discussion of the Enola Gay affair.
> I have just been looking back over most of the Washington Post articles that
> Hank Burchard kindly gave citations for. Working backwards from the present,
> I got as far as the September 26 article, which is the really, really fine
> in-depth piece in the whole lot. I'm sorry, but most of the stories since
> then tend to focus more on the rants from all of the usual suspects than
> on the doomed exhibition itself. I find the whole thing really reminiscent
> of a couple of earlier episodes where I felt the mainstream press coverage
> was lacking in any meaningful connection to primary sources -- one was the
> 1991 Civil Rights Bill, the other was the Lani Guinier nomination. And then
> you could get to the sources if you knew where to look. This thing is
> just going to be buried.
>
News is basically what's new. After Ken Ringle wrote that
masterful piece on Sept. 26, there wasn't much more to say about the
content of the exhibition and the manner of its preparation; the news was
what the latest consequences were of the curators' egregious folly.
> At one time, twenty or thirty years ago, I think some courts might have
> upheld the "public's right to know" over a copyright challenge in a situation
> like this. Now -- I seriously doubt it. I really feel like we've been had,
> folks.
>
Your despair is misplaced and out of date. In the era of the Xerox
machine, secrets have become impossible. The Internet has compounded the
already hopeless task of keeping the lid on. The public's right to know
is finally being realized. The problem with the Enola Gay Papers is the
same as the problem was with the Pentagon Papers: There's just too damn
much paper involved, most of it redundant and/or essentially worthless, to
make distribution practical.
+ + + + +
Hank Burchard * Weekend Section * The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW * Washington DC USA 20071-0001
VoiceMail (202) 334-7243 * Email: [log in to unmask]
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