In Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain] it states:
Government
workWorks of the United States Government and various other governments are excluded from copyright law and may therefore be considered to be in the public domain in their respective countries.[27] In the United States, when copyrighted material is enacted into the law, it enters the public domain. Thus, the building codes, when enacted, are in the public domain.[28] They may also be in the public domain in other countries as well. "It is axiomatic that material in the public domain is not protected by copyright, even when incorporated into a copyrighted work."[29] 28 ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Veeck_v._Southern_Building_Code_Congress_Int'l,_Inc./Opinion_of_the_Court 29^ Nimmer, Melville B., and David Nimmer (1997). Nimmer on Copyright, section 13.03(F)(4). Albany: Matthew Bender.
Of course, U.S. Law may not be British Law. For example, my recollection is that the Beaufort Scale is copyrighted in Britain.
--- On Mon, 2/7/11, Anabasis75@aol.com <Anabasis75@aol.com> wrote: From: Anabasis75@aol.com <Anabasis75@aol.com> Subject: [NavList] Nautical Almanac copyright To: NavList@fer3.com Date: Monday, February 7, 2011, 10:09 AM
I have a copy of the official USNO Nautical almanac here on the ship.
It is the orange hardcover version. It is obviously mostly British in
origin because of the spelling of certain words and the following note on the
first page "the following United States government work is excepted from the
above notice... cover, title page and reverse, Preface, pages 6 and 7, pages 286
to 317."
So what does this include? Well pages 6 & 7 are the eclipse
pages. The block between 286 and 317 are the concise sight reduction
tables that are included in the NA. Are these pages omitted from the
British version? If so, not a big loss for most users.
Also puzzling is the fact that the Preface allows anyone to apply in
witting to reproduce the data in any language and then it goes on to say that
many governments do this for their navies. Does this mean that the format
is what they are worried about?
I also find it funny that Frank points out that the arrangement of the
stars is copyrighted. I don't see anything special or unique about the
alphabetical list of the main navigational stars or the grouping of all of the
listed stars by ascending SHA.
Jeremy
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