Monday, August 01, 2005

Copyrights and talmud Torah

On my latest Artcroll post someone raised an excellent general point:
[in the past] those who disagreed with Rashi's understanding were free to write their own pirush and incorporate it into a sefer side by side with Rashi (ala Mikraos Gedolos) so that the reader could chose between approaches. Copyright law would preclude a contemporary critic of ArtScroll form copying the commentary into a competing publication with alternate approach.
That's an excellent point, regardless if we're discussing Artscroll or anything else. It seems like at least one time tested convention, namely presenting commentary/ critiques next to a complete text may be stunted by modern copyright laws. I wonder if--how modern copyright law has affected talmud Torah.

"No part may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose without the express written permission from...."

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